This Week in Unnecessary Commas
If there’s one place where you don’t want to make stupid punctuation errors, it’s in a full-page ad in the Sunday New York Times.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008 at 10:11 am and is filed under Grammar Police on Patrol. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:17 am
Annie in MN says:I have a problem with the bottom…shouldn’t the text be arranged like this?
Roasted fresh,
ground fresh,
and brewed fresh.
Our smoothest coffee ever.
Who designs these cups?
April 22nd, 2008 at 10:25 am
LJ says:I agree with Annie. There’s something about the statement on the bottom which is visually disturbing.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
John Barleycorn says:Thank you for keeping up the good fight.
Also, the third comma in the bottom slogan is unnecessary, too.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Sarah says:I’m not sure that comma is really wrong. It’s for emphasis. I think it falls within acceptable style variation.
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
jofusthaniel says:Is it me or is there an ‘l’ after the d in ground fresh?
April 22nd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
brooke says:fuck starbucks.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
tammy says:I’m w/ sarah. It makes the reader use the cadence the writer wants you to use.
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
StuyGirl says:Hmm. Although I don’t necessarily agree with the decisions the text designers made, there is no incorrect punctuation here. Although I would hyphenate “fresh-roasted.” And is there an “l” after “ground”?
April 22nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm
lozo says:yeah man, you’re really reaching here. it’s an ad, not copy in the new york times.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:23 pm
brooklyn gal says:I have to disagree with Sarah and Tammy. Just because they want the reader to pause after reading the word “coffee” doesn’t mean the comma is correct. While most people do pause when there is a comma, pauses do not actually equal commas.
April 22nd, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Chris says:Sarah and tammy: No, actually, it’s wrong. It’s not acceptable in any interpretation of grammatical rules. A comma is used in many instances, but this is not one of them. Simply adding a comma for the purpose of cadence is not grammatically correct.
The ad’s headline is an incomplete sentence. Let’s complete it and see what the comma is doing:
This is coffee, for people who love coffee.
In this case, a comma is placed between the main clause and a subordinate clause. This is always a misuse of a comma.
If you need any further proof, go to the Starbucks web site. The same headline is on their front page without the comma.
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
paul says:Even more offensive is the the fact that they’re using this new marketing campaign to get out of having to use the more expensive green in printing the cups!
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Todd says:Just because they want the reader to pause after reading the word “coffee” doesn’t mean the comma is correct.
Wait, you mean, I shouldn’t write, how I talk?
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Googie says:Advertising copy is typically conversational and even those of us who do it for a living and know the ins and outs of grammar are not slaves to it. Having said that the comma after “coffee” is just plain idiotic. If anything it undermines the message because it almost makes it read as a categorical promotion of coffee as opposed to a brand specific one.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:34 pm
Nate says:JB wrote:
Also, the third comma in the bottom slogan
is unnecessary, too.
You must be a newspaper writer (or regular reader of msn.com). It’s known as a serial comma or Oxford comma, and most American English style guidelines mandate its usage. Newspapers, I presume to conserve space, almost never use it. I find it maddeningly frustrating. It’s not that big of a deal in this sentence, since the series is obvious, but causes a helluva lot of confusion in some cases.
If you want to talk about unnecessary parts of a sentence, however, you shouldn’t use ‘also’ and ‘too’ in the same sentence. That’s double redundant.
April 23rd, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Sarah says:Punctuation’s a tool, not an end in itself, Chris.
April 24th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Chris says:Sarah: If you want to take that attitude, soon ull b readin stuff lk this in academic essays.
And my main point here is that someone got paid to copywrite this ad. There’s a certain expectation that it should be written properly when it’s written by someone who does it for a living.