Learn English – “Especially” and commas

commaspunctuation

I'm curious about the correct usage of commas in the following sentence:

"Secondary electron emission from metallic and especially dielectric surfaces is a fundamental process of great technological significance."

I heard that one should put a comma before but not after especially. However, in my opinion the sentence looks kind of weird with a comma in front of especially. Can anyone assist me on this?

Best Answer

The rule you were taught is an over-generalization. The sentence written above is correct with no commas at all. The "rule" about especially only applies to the case when especially is being used as a parenthetical phrase, usually at the end of a sentence.

We really like ice cream, especially chocolate ice cream.

This rule is not unique to the word especially, but is used for all sorts of sentence-final parentheticals:

The "rule" about especially only applies to the case when especially is being used as a parenthetical phrase, usually at the end of a sentence.

Since your sentence is not using especially to begin a parenthetical statement, it does not require a comma. It is, however, stylistically awkward, and I would recommend the following revision:

Secondary electron emission from metallic surfaces, especially dielectric surfaces, is a fundamental process of great technological significance

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