yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Meet the Comma | Punctuation | Grammar | Khan Academy


3m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Hello Grimarians! Today, Paige and I are going to teach you all about your new best friend, the comma.

Uh, it is a piece of punctuation that has many, many, many functions. Um, and we're just going to broadly overview them today. The comma is an extremely powerful piece of punctuation; it can do a whole bunch of stuff.

So, Paige, what is like the most pertinent or important thing that the comma does?

I would probably say that it is separating sentence elements.

Okay, so that's like its broad superpower. Exactly, but it can also do lots of stuff that falls under that. Okay, so it's like it has laser vision, but it can not only use that laser vision to like boil water, but it can also cut through steel.

Exactly! So this is like a super superhero punctuation mark. Make that into a 'C' for comma!

So, okay, how is the comma going to save the day today? How's it going to make our sentences make sense? What are some of the things that it separates?

Uh, so it can separate um elements of lists. Mmm, what's so like for lunch I had tofu, comma, spam, comma, and seaweed. Sorry, Hawaiian lunch. Mhm, delicious!

Um, so that's some that's a way in which we can, so it's separating these elements of this list.

Um, I guess commas can also separate dates.

That's right! Dates and times. So for example, here in the United States, uh, National Blueberry Muffin Day is July 11th. And if we wanted to refer to a historical Blueberry Muffin Day, let's say July 11th, 1981, wow, was the best muffin day ever!

That I wish I could have been around for that!

Yeah, okay, so, so a comma can separate lists, and it can be used for dates. And we can also like set off things at the beginning of sentences, like basically everything is great, right?

So the comma has like a bunch of different functions. It's like this super useful multi-tool. It's the superhero of a piece of punctuation.

So we're not going to cover all of that in this video. The most important thing to remember about the comma is what it does is separate sentence elements. It can separate clauses, it can separate items in a list, it can separate dates.

Um, usually when you're trying to make a separation within a sentence, you use a comma.

So, Paige, what are some things that commas can't do?

That's a great question! So, commas can't go at the end of a sentence.

Okay, so I couldn't be like I want to go swimming, comma, and that would— that couldn't— like I couldn't end a sentence that way, right? You need to say something after the comma. So this is no good.

No! Or, or you have to keep going, like I want to go swimming and then sailing, and end it with a period like that.

Yes! Okay, so that would be fine usage for a comma if it's in the middle of a sentence, but not at the end of a sentence, right?

Okay, so commas only go in the middle?

Yeah, so commas separate stuff, which therefore means it has to be on— it has to be in between something. Right? There has to be something to the left and something to the right.

Cool! All right, that's that's a comma.

Yeah! Would you say?

I think we have successfully met the comma.

Cool! You can learn anything!

David out! Paige out!

More Articles

View All
What's Driving Tigers Toward Extinction? | National Geographic
[Music] The tiger, the largest of the big cats, is also the most endangered. The population of wild tigers has declined more than 95% in the past century. What’s driving tigers toward extinction, and can we save them? Fewer than 4,000 tigers remain in th…
DON'T BE A GREEDY PIG!! Shark Tank Behind the Scenes | Kevin O'Leary
Oh, I just love the smell of a good royalty deal in the morning. [Off-Camera] Good morning Clay. Good morning Kevin. [Off-Camera] Hey, morning Ken. This is it. The Shark Tank set, right here. These tables, these chairs. Right here baby. This is where i…
Seth MacFarlane’s Scientific Influences | StarTalk
Seth, I called you into my office. Yes, I gotta talk to you because you want me to help you clean up. I clean up the office. Uh, I got at some point I had to find you and talk to you about the science and Family Guy. Yeah, yeah, you just have to watch a …
CONTACT LIGHT: The Story of Apollo 11
Okay, all flight controllers gonna go for landing retro. Oh, I don’t gel. The 20th of 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of mankind’s most treacherous journey when Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first touched the lunar surface. Over ha…
How I built a $275 million biotech company from nothing
What I founded Envision, I just did not look like the typical biotech or healthcare founder. I’m a brown woman. I’m a woman of color, and I didn’t have any one of the many higher degrees that they like, you know, MBA, PhD, MD. So there I am with my little…
Preparing for the AP US History Exam (5/4/2016)
Hi, this is S of the KH Academy, and you know we’ve always had a lot of content on KH Academy for the various AP tests, and we’ve actually been building out a lot for American history. So I’m here with Kim, who’s our AP History or American history fellow.…