Commas and Conjunctions

When you have a compound sentence, put the comma before the conjunction. Applies to semicolons, too. I think the big guy looks angry because the little guy has it wrong. Right???

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When “however” is an adverb, it’s a plain old adverb:

However you do it, do your work with good tools.

But “however” is frequently used as an aside, a pause in the flow of thought. When you use “however” this way, always follow it with a comma.

However, using good tools does not guarantee good work.

What do you do when “however” is inside a sentence? Preceed the word with a semicolon, not another comma! This sentence is wrong:

No modern clinical researcher has returned to Kast’s ideas, however, anecdotal cases have begun to emerge highlighting some people self-medicating with LSD microdoses to treat chronic pain.

https://newatlas.com/science/trial-lsd-microdoses-acute-pain-study-results

We have a judgement call here because what’s before and what’s after the “however” are different enough that the second part of the sentence could stand alone as its own sentence. The passage should be either of these:

• No modern clinical researcher has returned to Kast’s ideas; however, anecdotal cases have begun to emerge highlighting some people self-medicating with LSD microdoses to treat chronic pain.
• No modern clinical researcher has returned to Kast’s ideas. However, anecdotal cases have begun to emerge highlighting some people self-medicating with LSD microdoses to treat chronic pain.

But don’t put a comma ahead of “however”!

Um, a picture. Here’s what came with the article. Can you interpret it? I think it presumes more knowledge of LSD than I have:

I think I mentioned this topic before. Here’s another good example of how punctuation can change the meaning of a phrase.

As written in the comic, you have a compound phrase about the two things that the person is doing. The original is “downward-facing dog.” “Downward-facing” is a compound adjective describing “dog.”

So the punctuation makes the joke!

Need convincing that punctuation is optional? Read this:

And I have a question for you: Did he put the right number of commas at the end???

Not a lot of content here, but it’s on topic…

I counted five spelling errors, not counting the comma.