Writing Skills: When to use commas with FOR, AND, BUT, OR, YET, SO, NOR

TRANSCRIPT

Fanboy and Comma girl, a love story. By Mr. E. Hi. I'm James from engVid. And you're probably wondering: What the hell am I talking about? Fanboy and Comma... Comma Girl, okay? She's a superhero, and our boy loves her. In case you don't know what a fanboy is because you may not follow comics or movies as religiously as these guys do, I've got a definition for you. So let's just read: What is a "fanboy"? A person who is loyal to a game, person, or company, regardless if it sucks or not. That's not quite true, but what they are talking about is that fanboys love their products. If they love Apple, it is the best the universe has ever produced. And if Apple does something wrong, help them, somebody help them because they will be angry. But generally put, they just love their products so much, they let everybody know about them. Anybody with ears that will listen or who cannot escape from them. All right?

So how does this have anything to do with English and grammar? Well, this is a grammar lesson, and I find sometimes grammar can be incredibly boring, so let's make it a little bit fun. So we created a love story by Mr. E. Now, let's start off with comma. Because what is this lesson about? It's how, well, conjunctions, which I'm going to get to, work with commas and sentences. Some of you might have problems with them, I mean, some of you might even go: "Conjunctions, what are they?" So I'm going to talk about the most common conjunctions, and I'm going to talk about comma usage. Okay? We're going to do a quick lesson, here, and I'll make it fun. You ready?

So the first thing we should talk about is a comma. What is a comma? It's a punctuation mark. When you have sentences, there's a time to take a breath or to complete it. Okay? Now, periods, you may know, end sentences or ends thoughts. A comma sometimes gives us a breath or it gives us a pause between parts of a sentence, or gives you time to catch your breath, or get part of an idea. Okay? We also use it for lists. There's Frank, okay? Frank, Billy, John, Susie, you know, lists. Lists of things. Knives, forks, scissors, dah, dah, dah, and you'll have comma, comma, comma, separating them, keeping them individual. And finally, we can also... Well, there's more uses, but these are general. We can use them for numbers, large numbers. You know this, we can say 1,000, there'll be a comma to indicate 1,000, and two commas to indicate 1,000,000. So largers... Numbers larger than 1,000, you'll have commas somewhere. All right? That's basically what the comma is used for. Three different uses.

So, what are fanboys? Well, I told you they're excited about everything, right? Well, there's a little bit more than that. They're conjunctions. If we look here, I wrote "conjunction", and I put exactly what a conjunction is. It means to join something together. In this case, when we have usually conjunctions, we join two ideas together. If we use a conjunction with a comma, normally you're going to have clauses, and the clauses will be balanced or equal. Okay? Later on we'll go into all of that, but that's what's going to happen when we have usually a comma and a conjunction. You know, there are clauses being used and they're balanced.

But: "What are the conjunctions?" you might ask. Well, let's start off with... These are the basic ones. There are more, but these are the most common ones, and we use this acronym which is a word made up from the first letter of each word so you have something that's easy to remember, and I chose FANBOYS. And in a second, I'll reveal why. "For", it gives you a reason. Why did they do this? Okay? "And" ideas that go together.

[ishanb]

This is what EVERY LESSON AT SCHOOL SHOULD BE LIKE!

[Crybaby_Club]

As a native English speaker I can say that even we have trouble with knowing where to put commas so you're not alone. Good luck

[laurisskraucis]

the best English tutorial i have ever seen

[littlenagyal]

I never had such a wonderful as well as learning experience while studying. He is a nice teacher. Huge respect to him !!

[AnnaCoughlan]

I'm doing a Masters of Literature, but my grammar is awful. Thanks for making these videos. They've helped me quite a bit

[engvidAlex]

James, I want your shirt for my next video. It's so...magical.

[viguega]

Although grammar is usually boring you make didactic, creative and interesting lessons. You are a great teacher James!

[dasilvatube]

Hi James, my name is Fabio Silva I'm from Brazil and today discover your channel and liked. I'm beginning student of English nonetheless can understand more of the issues of his classes. Why do I came to study English after twenty years? I have a dream, thank you pastor Luther King. Thank you James for sharing your knowledge with us in English. Jesus bless you!

[IkramiNetwork]

James, thanks my man! I scored a flawless 90-90-90-90 in my first attempt at PTE. Your tips helped me a great deal. God bless! cheers!

[Marcostation]

Certainly, this is one of your best videos so far, James! You nailed it!

[morenodelacosta]

Hey, Dude. The way you mix grammar, concepts and usage, involving a love story was amazing. It made sense way better than a simple, traditional and boring explanation. That's what a teacher must be like... That's what I have to be focused on... And I will. It's a promise

[Annag]

The real dedicated man with a true heart for teaching 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Brill👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻Best gramma lesson I’ve seen in my life ( and I’m 30 so I’ve seen few lol ) plus funny and handsome - that’s the best English teacher ever 😜😎💪🏼✌🏻

[nadineee_]

Since I saw and watched your video back then, I always now click your new vid because I know I would be smiling throughout the lesson. Thanks! I learned a lot while having fun.

[ОляКоренева-йш]

thank you James! the best platform ever, I have been watching you for more than ten years🤗

[mberianidze]

you remind me on of my teachers. I was so much fun watching your video!

[beltusnkwawir]

Who needs an English teacher when he got James. He's a superb teacher.

[KanchanaRandika]

Using the comma in sentences was a mysterious thing to me, but now I understand the logic. Thank you very much for the cool lesson James!

[Englishinyourpocket]

Hi James, I want to thank you so much for the great job and inform you that you are my favorite online teacher. Now, I am and English teacher, too. But I still watch you and enjoy your lessons with Mr. E who I love so much. Special Thanks from the Kingdom of Morocco!

The fucking worm helps me in class a lot.

Salim

[ArunKumar-etzv]

Great video. The Creativity of the person made this video better than it is supposed to be.

[manzuradosnazarova]

YOU ARE THE BEST TEACHER IN THE WORLD!