Punctuation with Coordinator

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What happens when we combine a mark with a coordinator is what the hierarchy predicts: more of a separation. A long sentence by Didion illustrates both coordinator alone and coordinator with punctuation:

(44) But after a while the signs thin out on Carnelian Avenue, and the houses are no longer the bright pastels of the Springtime Home owners but the faded bungalows of the people who grow a few grapes and keep a few chickens out here, and then the hill gets steeper and the road climbs and even the bungalows are few, and here—desolate, roughly surfaced, lined with eucalyptus and lemon groves—is Banyan Street.

One can see clearly, in that sentence, the difference between the two possibilities with independent clauses: coordinator plus comma creates greater separation, greater emphasis, than coordinator alone; the options provided by these devices are needed—and used by good writers. To oversimplify and suggest that one should use a comma whenever a coordinator is used between independent clauses—or not use one when the second clause is ellipted—is to falsify the description of written English and to misinform the student. As a matter of fact, we commonly enough find coordinators between independent clauses with any of the punctuation marks:

(45) I wish good fortune to both sides, good will to all. Or conversely, depending on my mood of the moment, damn both houses and pox vobiscum.—Edward Abbey.

(46) Find them, and clone them. But there is no end to the protocol.—E. B. White

(47) Whether or not our old drainboard was a guardian of our health I will never know; but neither my wife nor I have enjoyed as good health since the back kitchen got renovated.—E. B. White

(48) Since then I have walked, and prefer walking to horseback riding—but I had forgotten the depth of feeling one could see in horses’ eyes.—Alice Walker

(49)... the job in Burma had given me some understanding of the nature of imperialism: but these experiences were not enough to give me an accurate political orientation.—George Orwell

Even more options are available with ellipsis in the second or third clause, the most common form of which is the ellipted subject; the “rule” tells us to punctuate as follows:

(50) This is called “anchoring the mall” and represents seminal work in shopping-center theory.

But the system here allows the writer some options:

(51) This is called “anchoring the mall,” and represents seminal work in shopping-center theory.

(52) This is called “anchoring the mall”—and represents seminal work in shopping-center theory.

(53) This is called “anchoring the mall”: and represents seminal work in shopping-center theory.

Didion chose (50), but the other choices must be considered as “correct,” and perhaps as reasonable as well. Sometimes a writer will even choose maximum separation:

(54) But all I could do was to try to rein him out of it. Or hug his back.—Alice Walker

(55) It is made; not described.—Ernest Hemingway

The ellipted independent clause in the following example by Updike could be punctuated with any mark but zero, making five options:

(56) [Doris Day’s] third picture, strange to say, ended with her make-believe marriage to Errol Flynn. A heavenly match, in the realm where both are lovable.

Yet five more options were available for Updike if he considered the deleted It was. And with coordinator plus It was there are—considering just and—probably four more. A total of fourteen options for a writer to consider.

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Notice that (51)–(56) are in fact examples of raising and represent options that good writers know how to exploit. Notice also that teaching a “rule” actually denies these options, for a rule indicates—at least for students—only one way of doing something, the “right” way; the rule thus denies students the opportunity to learn an important writing strategy. Which raises the question of pedagogy.