Grammar Girl # 45 Comma Splices

The comma splice passage was very informative. I do think I make this mistake every now and then in my writing. Mostly it is with sentences with “maybe.” Like: “I didn’t know what it was, maybe a tiger.” I’ll do that every so often, but now I’ll be alert to the dreaded comma splice and be able to fix them, or better yet, not write them at all. That sentence could be fixed by saying: “I didn’t know what it was; maybe a tiger.” Or: “I didn’t know what it was. It might have been a tiger.” Something like that. Commas are so tricky. I think I might just stop using them all together. Nonetheless, I learned something from this little lesson that now I’ll have with me for the rest of my writing career. I could pick out a comma splice from a million sentences. I understand comma splices so well that I could get a PhD in Comma Spliceology. I could then be the chair of the Comma Splice Department at UAA. In fact, Harvard University is actually having me fly down to make a speech called:”The 21st century and Comma Splices: Where do we go from here?”