A comma... again.

[Hex]

Heeeelp?

We sell the cottage to the first people who come to see it, a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats.

Is that correct or does the comma need to be something stronger?

I know it would work with a colon (and I thought it worked rather nicely with a dash) but colons are a bit formal-looking, and I am trying to break my dashing habit and return to the comma.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Works for me. Anything more would break what seems to be two joined clauses. Now, matching raincoats... Shudders.

 

[J Riff]

That sentence seems fine, though, technically, it... I dunno.
The comma takes the place of the words 'who were' possibly...

 

[Boneman]

It's absolutely fine.

 

[Bowler1]

Works for me. Anything more would break what seems to be two joined clauses. Now, matching raincoats... Shudders.

I'm with Springs, matching raincoats, who does that?
I thought the comma was fine too.

 

[Venusian Broon]

The tensing (is that a word???) throws me off a little, if it was sold and came instead I wouldn't bat an eyelid...

"We sold the cottage to the first people who came to see it, a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats"

Perhaps, if you want to keep the sell and come, then I think it works better if you drop the "To see it"

So it becomes: "We sell the cottage to the first people who come, a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats."


or perhaps for another variation...


"We sell the cottage to the first people who view it, a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats."

 

[mosaix]

I'm with Springs, matching raincoats, who does that?

Special agents?

The comma reads fine to me.

Tense a little odd but I would need to see more context to judge properly.

 

[Venusian Broon]

After a good ten minutes of hard thinking, I think I know what's throwing me a little about the sentence.

The first clause ends in "...to see it," which is the cottage, so in my mind I'm expecting the second clause, which is a descriptive clause by the way it's constructed, to be about the cottage. But instead it's about the people. So the "it" seems to get smeared and shared strangely between the cottage and the people. Leading to my tens minutes of confusion.

Hence my second variation above.

Does that make sense? When it comes to wordsmithery I'm a practical rather than theoretical lexical scientist, so perhaps take my advice with a pinch of salt . (Only got a B in my Higher English...)

 

[Dozmonic]

Comma and tense are both fine. Present tense always sounds odd because it's not used that much

 

[alchemist]

I like it!

 

[Ursa major]

We sell the cottage to the first people who come to see it, a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats.

The sentence is perfectly fine as it is, Hex.

Look at the basic sentence; the subject is "We"; the verb is "sell"; the (direct) object is "the cottage"; the indirect object is "the first people who come to see it".

The extra bit, written out in full , would be (J Riff pointed out): ", who were a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats".

But the "who were" is superflous, as the placing of ", a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats" directly after the indirect object tells the reader all he or she needs to know about what it's referring to. (And besides, writing it out in full would mean that there were two "whos" (too?) close together, which might make the more 'complete' sentence more jarring to read.)

 

[Venusian Broon]

Firstly, thank you Hex for giving me a ear-worm all day - this sentence has been bouncing about in my head like an angry wasp. And I've been dusting off grammar texts and the such like in an attempt to kill the little blighter

Secondly, it's fine - the meaning is pretty clear and if you like it, keep it. As others have said how it works in the context of the rest of the paragraph is important.

However, to play Devils advocate...

The sentence looks like a comma splice to me. An area which, on research, seems to be a grey area as to whether it is stylistically correct. So yes if you had an editor that hated them, a colon, semi-colon or a dash would be put in the comma's place.

Unlike Ursa however, I still detect a frisson of ambiguity from the structure as to firmly what the second clause is referring too (although unless your cottages brickwork has an outer layer of raincoats, yes I suppose it is pretty clear , I refer you back up to point 2 above). Hence as I like simplicity, I find it a teeny-weeny bit clunky.

So I'd offer another solution that removes the ambiguity totally and also the comma splice. And that is to add another comma after the 'to' thus introducing a weak interruption into the sentence with a pair of commas, giving you:

We sell the cottage to, the first people who come to see it, a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats.

 

[Erin99]

Sorry to say it, VB, but it's not a comma splice. A comma splice is when you combine two complete sentences into one: "I walked to the shop, I bought an ice-cream."

What hex has done is impart a bit of info (a parenthetical addition, "a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats") into the sentence to describe the people. The "it" also refers to the "house" as well, so it all links up nicely. And I'd prefer the comma to the dash, too, since the dash may seem too interrupting. It's fine as is, as present tense goes.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Sorry to say it, VB, but it's not a comma splice. A comma splice is when you combine two complete sentences into one: "I walked to the shop, I bought an ice-cream."

Firstly I said Devil advocate, and then I said looks like.



Yes, I'd find it a stretch to argue that the second clause can really live by itself - I'll give you that ...

...But then you fall into my trap, because it it isn't a comma splice, then...

...No, personally I don't add parenthetical information (or a weak interruption as I called it before) at the end of a sentence in this manner as it only has one comma - thus it floats free, crashing into a bemused full stop at the end of the sentence. Parenthesis should always be closed properly.

Perhaps this is old fashioned, perhaps you youngsters mess freeform with grammar, but I would call that stylistically wrong.

If indeed it is supposed to be parenthetical information I'd do it the way I showed at the end of my last post. But I stress 1. Devil advocates, 2. my opinion

 

[The Judge]

The sentence looks like a comma splice to me.

Um... no. (Well, if you've got funny eyesight, perhaps... ) As Leisha says, strictly a comma splice is one linking two separate sentences, but there is also a variety which we've (OK, I've) dubbed comma uglitude, such as "He went to the chair, sat." which might not strictly come into the two sentences rule, but is still terribly ugly. But Hex's present sentence isn't either of these -- it's just a bog-standard subordinate clause, I'd have said.

So I'd offer another solution that removes the ambiguity totally and also the comma splice. And that is to add another comma after the 'to' thus introducing a weak interruption into the sentence with a pair of commas, giving you:

We sell the cottage to, the first people who come to see it, a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats.

Um... double no. You've tried to create a parenthetical clause out of it, and it just isn't working -- the first part simply can't end at "to" like that, not unless the person speaking has a very weird habit of interrupting sentences in odd places to give extra information!

What hex has done is impart a bit of info (a parenthetical addition, "a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats") into the sentence to describe the people.

Um... also no, I'm afraid. It isn't a parenthetical addition, for the simple reason it isn't in parentheses! It's giving information as an addition, but an addition in a separate, subordinate, non-parenthetical, clause.


Hex, leave the comma and stop faffing.

 

[Venusian Broon]

Thanks TJ, I shall retire vanquished, after littering Hex's thread with a load of ****. I go now to foul other places inadvertedly.

 

[Erin99]

Um... also no, I'm afraid. It isn't a parenthetical addition, for the simple reason it isn't in parentheses! It's giving information as an addition, but an addition in a separate, subordinate, non-parenthetical, clause.


Hex, leave the comma and stop faffing.

LOL! Yes, I was being harassed to hurry up, post, and get my butt on the couch to rest, and I knew I hadn't picked the correct word. But I couldn't remember what it was called properly, so I wrote "addition" and didn't delete "parenthetical"!

Anyway, yes, now I'm less rushed I can say that "a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats" and "the first people who come to see it" are both noun phrases. You can't split either one because that's the full name.


We sell the cottage to the first people who come to see it, a professional-looking couple in matching raincoats.

Noun phrase 1
Noun phrase 2
Noun phrase 3



It's okay, VB, it took me years to learn these annoying, finicky bits like this.

 

[HareBrain]

Hex, leave the comma and stop faffing.

There's nothing to say she didn't do so after the first response. It's the rest of us who need to take your advice.

 

[Hex]

Now would I really have done that?

Thank you, everyone. That was fantastically useful and informative

 

[Ursa major]

Yes, we're in the comma van here on the Chrons, Hex!