Below is a sentence from my book review. "China" is the name of the author.    Is it correct or incorrect to have a comma after the word pay?     China finds a way to dissect both a woman's desire to find love and her penchant to make a man pay, if he plays around with that love.
120709
Are both of the following sentences correct?  a: You can call me, if you need me.  OR  b: You can call if you need me.  Note that in a:, the comma is placed before the "if" and is not present in case b.  From this link, I gather that it isn't necessary because it's a short sentence:   But can someone point out an "official" source on this usage?
36188
What is the rule for comma placement before a quotation mark? When should the comma go before and when should it go after the quotation mark?
20231
I was reading this today:  We look forward to following your progress.  Am I correct in thinking that it is missing a be or that -ing should be removed?  So  We look forward to be following your progress.  or  We look forward to follow your progress.  Interestingly I get the same jarring feeling when reading the examples here
85651
I'm working on a story, and I find myself faced with something of a quandary.  Specifically, I need to know the proper style for the following:     “I have thousands of them,” the commissioner answered, “but I’ll start with ‘What do you need?’.”   Is it proper form to have both the question mark and period, or should one of them be dropped?
84626
Consider the following sentence:     In July of 2012 Jesse informed us that she was engaged to be married   and asked if she could add her fiancée to the lease,   beginning the 15th of August 2012.   Is it any more or less correct to place a comma after the first date?     In July of 2012, Jesse informed us that she was engaged to be married   and asked if she could add her fiancée to the lease,   beginning the 15th of August 2012.   Assuming one is no more correct than the other, does this change the meaning of the sentence, or is it pure style?   Bonus question: Word tells me that it's improper to place a comma after the "August" at the end of the sentence. I've always been taught that a comma should be used to separate the year from the rest of the date. Was I taught wrong, or is Word lying to me?
42514
I am trying to teach myself punctuation rules. I have this sentence:     The Disney version generally considered both racist and sexist portrayed the female characters in stereotypical roles and presented ethnically diverse characters with stereotypical features.   I think the sentence needs a comma after sexist and before portrayed. I also think it needs a comma after roles because of what I have identified as a coordinating conjunction. I.e.:     The Disney version generally considered both racist and sexist, portrayed the female characters in stereotypical roles, and presented ethnically diverse characters with stereotypical features.   Did I punctuate the sentence correctly? Is this a coordinating conjunction?
78473
I would like to know what usually follows after each proposition in sentences with the word &quot;work&quot;. These are what I understand so far: I work for my boss. ( usually for certain person ) I work in a accounting corporation. (usually for business area ) I work at Samsung. ( usually for specific name of company ) Could you please tell me if I understand rightly?
8975
A total of 10 payments were made.   OR     A total of 10 payments was made.   Which is correct? Or can both be correct?
21323
which is correct:  Thank you for your and your team's time  or  Thank you for yours and your team's time  and should (or does it make a difference if) I place commas before and after "and your team's"  ... thanks!!
15086
There is a recommendation to put a comma after an if-clause which is placed at the beginning of a sentence. For example:     If there was the time when songs like this were not needed, I would not live to see it.   But here is the sentence:     If you had married this girl you would have been wretched.   Why does it go with no comma?
19667
Let's talk money.   It's from an American show: Friends(Season02 Episode03), Usually, I would say "Let's talk about money, but why did she omit the word "about"?
19706
Sometimes I see a comma after the proper name:     Hello Mr. Black,      In order to give you....   But my native language is not English and I think that the comma in this phrase should be placed before the proper name:      Hello, Mr. Black.      In order to give you....   What is the correct punctuation in English?
92336
Over on another network site, a helpful user corrected the grammar of .  The answer now says     I believe it's valid.   where I originally wrote     I believe it valid.   Is the original sentence gramamatically (or at least idiomatically) correct or do I absolutely need a form of 'to be' here? (What's more, is 'to be' a copula or an auxiliary verb if used like this?)  I am quite certain that I have seen sentences like the original one in the past, but I am uncertain where. Given that I am frequently exposed to the somewhat made-up English of authors in the fields of sci-fi and fantasy, I might have fallen into a trap here.  Edit: I don't doubt that the correction is valid and enhances readability.
104620
I wimped out in answering , dropping the commas and going to parentheses in this sentence, because I was not sure of the placement/correctness of commas in this construction. Now I'd like to get clear on how to use commas in this sentence (without reformulating it...no moving "poems", for example), and why. I'm not even sure that conjunction reduction is what causes the awkwardness here...  Wimp version:     I like Lord Byron's (and also enjoy a number of Percy Shelley's) poems.   Now I'm asking, if you use the comma, do you use both commas? It looks mighty strange with "poems" out there by itself:     I like Lord Byron's, and also enjoy a number of Percy Shelley's, poems.   ...Or is the comma even required? I don't like this, but is it correct?     I like Lord Byron's and also enjoy a number of Percy Shelley's poems.
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If I were to use the sentence "There are lots of John Smiths" in the world, would that be the correct use for saying that there are a lot of people named John Smith in the world?  I don't think there should be an apostrophe as that would imply ownership of something.  If my first example is correct, then what would you do if the name referenced already ended with an 's'?
114966
I found the following phrase in a NYTimes article and I was pretty surprised that it wasn't corrected or edited out: "But when it comes to privacy and freedom, cash can't be beat.".  I am under the impression that this is incorrect grammar and the sentence should actually be "[...] cash can't be beaten." or "[...] you can't beat cash" but definitely not the one used in the article. Am I wrong here?  This sort of grammar is mostly only used in slang in England and I always thought that it was wrong but after a bit of googling, I'm not sure anymore. Is it just another difference between American and British English? I know it's really petty but I'm still interested in the answer!  Article link:
121293
This is the name of a company:     Taobao Network Co., Ltd.   Is it correct that every first letter is capitalised? Also, why is there a comma?