hello everyone and welcome back to my
channel sparkle english where i teach
you how to improve your level of english
this is a new video in my popular series
on english writing essentials
today i'm going to teach you how to use
evocative commas
and why they are so important when you
are writing in english
so the vocative comma is used when the
speaker is addressing a specific person
or group of people so for example
mom comma i need your help
because this boy is talking to his mom
and not about his mom we have to use a
comma to indicate that the speaker is
talking to his mom evocatives are
normally found at the beginning or the
end of a sentence however they can also
be included in the middle of a sentence
so we're going to discuss the three
rules when we use the vocative comma
with examples of how we use it in each
case
rule number one
use a comma after evocative at the start
of a sentence
for example
j
comma can we borrow your car
because we are talking 2j
we have to use a comma after j
dad comma i need twenty dollars
sir comma you need to wait in line
ladies and gentlemen comma may i have
your attention
in all of these sentences we are talking
to jay
dad sir and ladies and gentlemen so we
have to use a comma to indicate that we
are talking to this person or groups of
people
rule number two
use a comma before evocative at the end
of a sentence
for example it's nice to see you comma
dave
do you understand comma students
please answer the question comma mr
smith
i love you comma honey
again in all of these sentences we are
talking to dave to the students to mr
smith or to honey which is a nickname
for the person's loved one
and finally rule number three
use a comma before and after evocative
in the middle of the sentence
for example
what luke do you think
here you can see we have a comma before
the vocative and after the vocative
because it's in the middle of the
sentence
now this is less common it would be more
common to say luke what do you think
or what do you think luke but sometimes
we do use evocative in the middle of the
sentence and in this case we have to use
a comma before and after
where comma josh comma does your mother
live
you comma my darling comma are an
intelligent woman
so why are vocative commas important
the vocative comma is important because
it helps identify who you are speaking
to
without changing the overall meaning of
the sentence
so let's look at the difference between
i don't know dan
versus i don't know dan or
let's eat grandma versus let's eat
grandma
adding the vocative comma completely
changes the meaning of these sentences
and i will show you why and how
so in the first example with the
vocative comma i don't know dan
imagine this here is dan and he says to
his friend do you think it will snow
this week
the friend says i don't know dan
so he is addressing dan and we know that
this is dan
because we have the evocative comma
but if we don't have the vocative comma
and we say i don't know dan
that would be as if he is saying he
doesn't know who dan is
do you know dan
no i don't know
dan now let's look at a very common
example and a very important distinction
between let's eat comma grandma and
let's eat grandma
if we say let's eat comma grandma
okay
that means this boy is saying to his
grandma let's go eat let's go have
dinner
but if we do not use the vocative comma
and he says let's eat grandma
that would be as if he is saying let's
eat grandma let's literally eat grandma
for dinner
so it is very important that we
use the vocative comma
to distinguish what exactly it is we are
trying to say
so now we're going to do some practice
you have to place vocative commas in the
following sentences if needed some of
these sentences do not need vocative
commas so remember that we use evocative
comma when we are directly speaking to a
person or group of people if we are
talking about a person we do not need to
use evocative comma i'm going to read
you these sentences and then we will
correct them together
number one hey dave how are you
number two
do you know where the coffee is mary
number three mark i need to borrow your
car tomorrow
number four we understand your concern
steve but that is not the point
number five i met john and his wife last
night
number six honey i'm home
number seven
thanks for your help melissa
finally number eight
julie and fred are coming for dinner
tomorrow evening
okay so let's correct these together
number one hey dave how are you
we need to place evocative comma after
hey
hey dave how are you
because dave is at the end of a sentence
and we are talking to dave we have to
put evocative comma before dave
number two do you know where the coffee
is
comma mary
again we are talking to mary so we have
to use evocative comma before mary
number three mark
comma i need to borrow your car tomorrow
we have the vocative at the beginning of
the sentence so we need to put a comma
after mark because we are asking mark if
we can borrow his car
number four we understand your concern
comma
steve
comma but that is not the point
again here we have a vocative
in the middle of the sentence
so we have to place a comma before and
after steve
number five
is correct as it is we do not need to
add evocative comma i met john and his
wife last night
now the difference between number five
and number four is that in sentence five
we are talking about john and his wife
we are not talking to john so we do not
need evocative comma we only use
evocative commas when we are
trying to distinguish that we are
talking to a person and not about a
person
and number six we would say honey comma
i'm home
we have a vocative at the beginning of a
sentence so we use a comma after honey
number seven
thanks for your help comma
melissa
again we have the evocative at the end
of the sentence so we place a comma
before melissa
and finally number eight julie and fred
are coming for dinner tomorrow evening
we do not need evocative coma because we
are not talking to julie and fred we are
talking about them so they are part of a
complete sentence we do not need the
evocative commas
so i want you to let me know in the
comments section how many you got
correct out of eight
if you want more videos to improve your
english writing skills make sure to
click on the links in the description
below this video to see my other videos
on comma usage and my other english
writing essentials videos
thank you guys once again for watching
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