Joe Comma and the FANBOYS — Coming Soon to a Class Near You

Photo by Sam Moqadam on Unsplash

Do you mean to tell me you’ve never heard of Joe Comma and the FANBOYS? Why they’ve been around longer than Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. They’re more popular than Gladys Knight and the Pips. And they’re much more useful than Country Joe and the Fish. In fact, if you become a big fan of Joe Comma and the FANBOYS, you may be surprised at what happens to your grades this semester.

Joe Comma and the FANBOYS have been around for about 1,500 years, ever since people began writing and punctuating in English. No, they’re not a musical group. FANBOYS is an acronym to help you remember the seven coordinating conjunctions:

For

And

Nor

But

Or

Yet

So

A coordinating conjunction is used to connect words, phrases, and clauses of equal weight. If you’re connecting two items that are not complete thoughts, you don’t need a comma before the coordinating conjunction, which in the following example is separating the lead singer from the rest of the group: “I enjoy the music of Country Joe and the Fish.”

However, if you want to connect two complete thoughts, you do need a comma before the coordinating conjunction separating the first…