Eat Sleep Dreamers welcome back to another lesson with me Tom. Now today we;re going
to be looking at writing and in particular punctuation. Now I know so many of you need
to write in English whether it's for your work, whether it's for university, to do an
exam, at school or even with your English speaking friends on social media and in emails.
Writing is really important to you. So we're going to be looking at punctuation and in
particular commas. Guys, punctuation saves lives! I'm being serious, it saves lives.
And I'm going to show you exactly how right after we meet another Eat Sleep Dreamer.
Alright, do you want to see how punctuation saves lives? Because I don't
think you believe me! Let's find out.
Hello everyone, today a remarkable incident occurred in London England when a young boy
saved the life of his Grandpa. Let's hear the story from the boy himself, Georgie Biggins.
It all happened at lunch time. My sister had been cooking for us and when it was ready
she sent a text message to the family group saying 'Let's eat Grandpa'. I read it and
I was shocked! Did she mean let's eat Grandpa?Why were we eating Grandpa? I thought we were
having spaghetti bolognese. So I thought, what shall I do? And then I thought well,
I'll send a text message back and I sent a message back saying do you mean let's eat,
Grandpa? And I was very relieved to see that that is exactly what she meant. And so we
didn't eat Grandpa, we had spaghetti bolognese. I'm not a hero, I just think that's what any
boy would do.
So as you can see, punctuation really does save lives. Now let's have a look at the sentence.
'Let's eat Grandpa.' without the comma. The verb is eat and the object of the verb is
Grandpa. So we are saying let's eat Grandpa, he's the food. The thing that we want to eat
is Grandpa. However, if you add the comma 'let's eat, Grandpa.' suddenly everything
changes. That comma has changed the meaning of the sentence. We are now saying let's eat
to the audience that is Grandpa. We are saying it to Grandpa. Let's eat, Grandpa. He is no
longer the food, perhaps the food is now spaghetti bolognese but it's not Grandpa and that's
the important thing. He is the person that we are saying it to. And with one comma we
have saved Grandpa's life. Good evening Eat Sleep Dreamers, stay beautiful.
So as you can see Eat Sleep Dreamers punctuation can save lives. Now we're going to look at
some uses of commas right now. There are a lot of examples of how and when to use commas
so we're just going to look at four today. So we're going to keep it nice and simple,
just look at four examples of when to use commas. The first example is when we are listing
things. So usually three or more things.For example 'I've visited Argentina, Brazil and
Bolivia.' Argentina comma Brazil and Bolivia. So this just helps us to separate the ideas
and make the things we are listing a bit clearer. So those are all nouns. We can also use it
for adjectives so in this example sentence 'She's young, beautiful and intelligent.'
So we're using the comma there in between young and beautiful and then we have and intelligent
to finish the list off. So the comma is separating the first two adjectives and then we have
and at the end to finish the list so the comma goes in between the first two adjectives.
If you have got four things you would say 'She's young, beautiful, kind and intelligent.'
And the comma there is going in between young beautiful and kind. So commas are juts helping
us to divide up a list and make it look clearer.
So to practise that, in the comments below I'd like you to write a list of countries
that you have visited, ok? A list of countries that you have visited. So I've been to and
then a list of countries. Use those commas to help you separate that list and then and
and the final one at the end. So Ive been to Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. Boom!
Second use is in tag questions. A tag question is a sentence like this 'Yo like chocolate,
don't you?' So it's a statement which we then end with a question just to maybe check information
or to ask a genuine question. So 'You like chocolate, don't you?' So the statement and
then the comma and then the tag at the end. So that's the auxiliary and the subject. So
don't you in this case. Or you're from Argentina, aren't you? So we have you're from Argentina
is the statement comma and then aren't you? is the question tag. The auxiliary and then
the subject. So in tag questions we separate the two ideas, the statement and the tag question
with a comma. Another common use of commas is in a non-defining relative clause and it's
used to separate that non-defining relative clause from the rest of the sentence. Let's
look at an example to explain this. Ok, 'St Paul's Cathedral, which was built in 1675,
is located in central London.' Ok, let's break that down. So we have St Paul's Cathedral,
one of my favourite buildings in London. Then we have the non-defining relative clause 'which
was built in 1675' and we have the comm before that and after that. Then the rest of the
sentence 'is located in central London'. Now the reason we have put the commas around the
non-defining relative clause is because that's extra information and we can choose to put
that in or we can take it out it doesn't matter. Let's say we take that out, the sentence is
still perfectly good. So St Paul's Cathedral is located in central London. Now I'm putting
in extra information that doesn't change the meaning of that sentence, it's still St Paul's
Cathedral is located in central London and that's still true but I'm adding extra information
because I want to. Because why not! I'm trying to tell you more information so we put that
extra information in between two commas. St Paul's Cathedral, which was built in 1675,
is located in central London. So we call that a non-defining relative clause and the commas
help us to separate that from the rest of the sentence. Let's look at another example.
Ok, 'My sister, who is four years older than me, has two children.' So again, the non-defining
relative clause 'who is four years older than me' it's just extra information. I'm just
giving you more information about my sister but the main sentence is my sister has two
children. So the non-defining relative clause is in between two commas. So I could say My
sister has two children or if I want to give you extra information 'My sister, who is four
years older than me, has two children' Commas go in there to help us separate these ideas.
Alright, does that make sense? I hope so. Alright.
Ok and this one is a really great one. This is when we use commas to separate little interruptors
or little extra ideas that pop into our heads during writing or spoken English as we ll
to a certain extent. So for example 'My sister, unlike me, is really organised.' So there,
the little though, the little pop of a little idea is 'unlike me'. So my sister, unlike
me, is really organised. So I'm saying there that she is really organised and I'm not.
So that little idea or a little interruption into the sentence, we put in between commas.
So my sister comma unlike me comma is really organised. So that's just separating that
little extra information. That little extra idea. Let's look at another example. 'The
summer, unfortunately, was over.' So unfortunately there is just a little extra information a
little expression of my feeling or emotion in to the sentence. Because the sentence without
that 'The summer was over' fine but this extra piece of information just to kind of describe
my emotion, my feeling, a little interruption into the sentence, we are going to put in
between commas. The summer comma unfortunately comma was over. So again we're just injecting
a little extra information and with that we juts want to make it clear by putting commas
around it. Because that's the point of commas. Commas are just there to make our written
English look clearer, to organise our ideas. So it's easier for the reader to understand,
that's all we are trying to do. So when someone reads a sentence the commas help to organise
the ideas and make it clear for the reader to understand.
Alright Eat Sleep Dreamers, was that useful? I really hope it was. It's just a very brief
guide into how to use commas. It's a complicated subject and there are lots of other ways to
use them which we can go into in depth another time but i wanted to just introduce you to
the importance of commas and the importance of punctuation so that when you are writing
in your business context or at school or university or even with your friends do try and think
about your punctuation and where you can use commas to separate your ideas and make things
a lot clearer. I'm back again every Tuesday every Friday with brand new English lessons
so that you can take your English to the next level and achieve your goals. I've loved hanging
out with you again. I hope you enjoyed it. Hit the like button, make sure you subscribe
and I'll see you next time. This is Tom the Chief Dreamer saying goodbye.