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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. rincew+k8[view] [source] 2021-07-09 19:04:41
>>wizzwi+74
It would not be correct in German either (source: Native speaker, went to Grammar School).

This is just another instance of North Americans (I haven't really seen this in British English speakers) placing their commata not at the boundaries between clauses/phrases, but where they pause when they read the sentence out loud. You may argue with descriptivism -- that the grammatical rules have changed and this is the new normal -- but placing a comma like this has the probably unintentional effect that reading the sentence out loud now causes you to pause in yet a different place.

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