proper punctuation: --,

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James - 26 Jan 2004 03:37 GMT

Is the punctuation:

--,

ever acceptable? That is, is an em dash followed my a comma, ever
acceptable. I thought I've seen this published in a philosophy journal
once. (Not to say that that means it's correct.)

OK this is probably a bad example, but I can't think of any.

"But to be safe -- and because it's hard to get to my office --, is there
a time that you would prefer?"

The idea here was to put a parenthetical statement (delimited with em
dashes) between a dependent and independent clause. I assume the clauses
are naturally separated by a comma. I'm sure you could probably rewrite
this, but is there any situation in which the above punctuation is correct?

Thanks,

James

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Gerald Smyth - 26 Jan 2004 07:44 GMT

> Is the punctuation:
>
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
> are naturally separated by a comma. I'm sure you could probably rewrite
> this, but is there any situation in which the above punctuation is correct?

I don't recall seeing that comma used in recently printed material,
though I have seen it in older material. I would describe it as
logically correct. However, even though it's retained after a right
parenthesis, it seems to be dropped by convention after a right dash.
It's as though the dashes produce such a strong interruption that one
is allowed to forget the comma. Or perhaps there was some other reason
it fell into disuse.

Gerald Smyth

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DOYLE60 - 26 Jan 2004 14:09 GMT

>> "But to be safe -- and because it's hard to get to my office --, is there
>> a time that you would prefer?"

The Chicago Manual of Style, if you need some sort of authority, I believe,
says to never do this. Simply delete it from the above.

Matt

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Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

proper punctuation: --,