4 ms·

The first comma is simply incorrect. "unfortunately" does need commas around it, but it could be moved to the beginning for a simpler sentence. The fourth comm

by seaish 8y ago

The first comma is simply incorrect. "unfortunately" does need commas around it, but it could be moved to the beginning for a simpler sentence. The fourth comma is also incorrect and should be replaced by a semicolon. "Unfortunately, the problem is that sometimes these tools are just not sufficient; it's still easy to shoot your own foot and get lost in a sea of complexity." And looking at that now, I would also get rid of "the problem is that". "Unfortunately" and "sometimes" back to back lacks flow, so I would also replace "sometimes" (in this case with "often" in place of "just"). In the original, "just not" has a stronger grouping than "not sufficient", which is why "insufficient" wasn't used. Now with "just" gone, I'd swap back in "insufficient". "Unfortunately, these tools are often insufficient; it's still easy to shoot your own foot and get lost in a sea of complexity."

bshimmin 8y ago
Just to aid people who are interesting in looking this sort of thing up, the fourth comma in the original is an example of a "comma splice", where the comma is too weak to join the two independent clauses. You can solve a comma splice by either making the two independent clauses into separate sentences, joining them with a stronger piece of punctuation (like a semicolon, colon, or a dash), or by using a conjunction like "and".
- DFHippie 8y ago
  British English seems to be more forgiving about comma splices than American English. One certainly sees them much more frequently in British English.
  - bshimmin 8y ago
    I suspect it may be more the case that many people under 40 in the UK weren't really taught much at all in the way of grammar, and even people who have involuntarily picked up fairly decent grammatical skills still struggle with comma splices, which are, admittedly, quite a subtle sort of error whose detection is predicated by a full mastery of the purposes of the various punctuation marks and an understanding of clauses.

by seaish 8y ago

bshimmin 8y ago

Just to aid people who are interesting in looking this sort of thing up, the fourth comma in the original is an example of a "comma splice", where the comma is too weak to join the two independent clauses. You can solve a comma splice by either making the two independent clauses into separate sentences, joining them with a stronger piece of punctuation (like a semicolon, colon, or a dash), or by using a conjunction like "and".

DFHippie 8y ago
British English seems to be more forgiving about comma splices than American English. One certainly sees them much more frequently in British English.
- bshimmin 8y ago
  I suspect it may be more the case that many people under 40 in the UK weren't really taught much at all in the way of grammar, and even people who have involuntarily picked up fairly decent grammatical skills still struggle with comma splices, which are, admittedly, quite a subtle sort of error whose detection is predicated by a full mastery of the purposes of the various punctuation marks and an understanding of clauses.