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[return to "It may just be a game to you, but it means the world to us"]
1. tines+23[view] [source] 2021-07-09 18:39:39
>>Tomte+(OP)
Not to detract from the message here, but

> It may just be a game to you but, it means the world to us

The placement of that comma really irks me. Isn't "It may just be a game to you, but it means the world to us" the grammatically correct form? I'm somewhat surprised to see this in official communication from the Canadian Red Cross group.

I feel like I've seen this "post-but" comma more and more recently. I guess people feel like they would speak the sentence with a pause after the conjunction and therefore the comma goes there in writing.

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2. wizzwi+74[view] [source] 2021-07-09 18:45:48
>>tines+23
It's correct in German, which otherwise has basically the same grammar as English.
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3. eldais+45[view] [source] 2021-07-09 18:49:14
>>wizzwi+74
>which otherwise has basically the same grammar as English

German and English have similar grammar but they are very far from being the same. Particular here with commas. Clauses in German are almost always marked with commas. English uses the comma much more sparingly.

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4. schoen+Q6[view] [source] 2021-07-09 18:57:09
>>eldais+45
Yes, it's always odd to me to see native German speakers putting a comma before "that" in indirect discourse in English (like "ich glaube, dass dieser Satz richtig ist" -> *"I believe, that this sentence is correct").

In English there's also a difference in comma usage with restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses (restrictive relative clauses, which indicate which specific entity is referred to as opposed to others, don't use commas, while nonrestrictive relative clauses, which merely add additional information, do), but I seem to remember that native German speakers will commonly write both with commas.

*The person, who was here yesterday, has come back.

Conversely, it's sometimes hard for me to remember to use that comma in German. I want to write something like *"sie sagt dass man hier kein Komma braucht".

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