At university, it was drilled into us to avoid comma splices like the plague, but I keep seeing them in all different types of famous, best-selling novels.
I read things (all in dialogue, in inverted commas) like:
-You wouldn't like it, believe me.
-Trust me, I know what I'm taking about.
-I'm not going, I don't care what you see.
-He's a straight shooter, I'll give him that.
-I'm warning you, don't test me.
-I told you, he doesn't work on Mondays.
-Don't worry, I won't tell anyone.
I keep seeing this type of things in really well-known novels.
I know a lot of editors like to avoid using semi-colons and colons in dialogue, and wonder if this is why so many comma splices are creeping in?
Are comma splices more acceptable in dialogue than in regular text, in the way that commas can indicate pauses and so mimic more natural sounding speech?
Is there also an argument that says that commas in dialogue, even if they cause comma splices, are less distracting to the reader than a semi-colon in the middle of a sentence, which they may not fully understand or that may take away from the natural flow of the words?
I was wondering if any writers here would use comma splices in dialogue as above.
Any advice would be appreciated! Thank you.
Best Answer
Good question. I copyedit and proofread novels, so I can tell you that this is a grammatical error very commonly allowed in fiction. As you can imagine, novels allow for a bending of conventional grammar rules to account for author style and pacing. In the publishing process, editors develop a style sheet that lists exceptions to grammar and punctuation rules that should be allowed in the work at hand. Comma splices are usually one of those listed exceptions and are often overlooked in both dialogue and narration.
To comment specifically on the use of comma splices in dialogue, though, imagine reading one of these sentences if the comma were replaced by a period:
The change in punctuation creates a subtle difference in the character's tone, wouldn't you say?
The independent clauses could be joined by a semicolon, but this looks foreign and unnatural in dialogue. There is no actual rule behind this that I know of, just an overall style preference.
A more elegant way to punctuate the dialogue than with the use of a semicolon would be with an em dash. This would make the sentence both grammatically correct and still natural:
Yet this also subtly changes the feeling of the sentence by emphasizing believe me. A comma does more to simply and equally link the two independent clauses.
In summary, don't look to novels to follow grammar and punctuation rules precisely; the priority in popular literature is more on style than perfection.