A little piece of a thing I'm writing: Before Frederick could argue with the cat he noticed a shift in the sounds coming out of the cats all around him. They were no longer meowing. Perhaps they never were. Frederick heard low, guttural baritones, high, shrill falsettos, wavering notes carrying over long and short periods. It was difficult for him to come to terms with this: the cats were performing a complex piece of written music. Have included the whole paragraph for context, the bold is the sentence in question. Does it seem awkward or am I over-analyzing?
It feels like it flows fine for me, and you've given us a rather interesting sample... However, I should caveat I'm often fond of commas, they help you breathe
It's a bit awkward because you are contradicting yourself without a tying verb. Frederick heard low, guttural baritones overlying high, shrill falsettos, wavering notes carrying over long and short periods. [Or 'underlying' or some other transitive verb] Personally, I would split the sentence but then that's the style I write in. Frederick heard low, guttural baritones overlying high, shrill falsettos. The wavering notes carried over long and short periods.
Do what? Change font color? At the top of the menu bar you'll see options. The A opens a font color palette. The next two a's change font size and font style. Hold your cursor over the bar icons and it will tell you what they do. If you have a yellow box and no menu bar you need to toggle back to the rich text editor. By the way, why is 'notes' italicized?
I meant more like, how did you think of doing underlying/overlying? I don't even know what a tying verb is. How did you like, apply smartsifartsiness, I guess. I'm expressing gratitude. Notes is italicized to emphasize the word if you were saying it aloud, like "omg NOTES." Because omg, cats are meowing in notes, wow.
It was just a reaction to trying to hear your sentence in my head. "low, guttural baritones, high, shrill falsettos" You are saying, "he heard low tones, high tones." Which is it? Either you need "and" in there, or making it more interesting, something that says more than "and". I know the italics were for emphasis, but again, I don't know how to read that in my head. Why are you emphasizing 'notes'? I can't interpret the meaning that would make you emphasize 'notes' in that sentence. Could just be me.
Ugh, weird how some people think those commas are okay, others think it's awkward. There is no official protocol for commas!
There's an official protocol for commas. Frederick heard low, guttural baritones, The first comma belongs. It divides a double string of adjectives. The second comma belongs. It divides two nouns, 'baritones' and 'falsettos.' high, shrill falsettos, Same here. The first comma divides a double string of adjectives. And the second divides two nouns again, 'falsettos' and 'notes' wavering notes carrying over long and short periods. Is there a post here that says otherwise? I took the comma out in my example because 'overlying' took the place of it.
Yup, two posts in the thread (by those who aren't you or me) think the commas are fine. I'm tending toward going with your input because I posted this thinking it was awkward myself. But that's still a split opinion, which makes it confusing still.
The commas were technically fine. It was the sentence I had a different preference for, while others didn't. That's more a style choice than a grammatically incorrect issue.
There is a protocol. And commas are in no way there to help you breathe. Here's my take (based on the rules I know). Firstly, it seems like you are listing three things. If you list, and one of the items contains a comma, the comma separating the nouns becomes a semicolon. I have apples, oranges, and pears. I have sweet, delicious apples; oranges; and pears. You only need commas between adjectives if they are describing the same aspect of the noun (sweet, delicious = taste). I have big red apples, oranges, and pears. However, I'm not sure if you are listing three things or two. Baritones, falsettos, and notes? But baritones and falsettos are notes. (Also, there is no need to say low or shrill -- that's what baritone and falsetto mean.) So maybe: He heard wavering notes, baritones and falsettos,... or He heard baritones and falsettos, wavering notes that... or He heard wavering baritone and falsetto notes that... Does this help at all? I hope so. Also, the first sentence should have a comma (if you're following the rules). Before Frederick could argue with the cat, he noticed a shift in the sounds coming out of the cats all around him.
When writing fiction, you have a lot of room to experiment with grammar and punctuation, which is why you're going to get different opinions. Depending on the context, you could even omit all of the commas in that sentence, and it would be perfectly fine.
But is advice like this helpful? To say that you can get away with anything? I also don't know when it would be okay to omit all the commas, unless we're talking Finnegan's Wake.
I think it's helpful for people who already have a good understanding of the rules of grammar. At the very least, it's something to think about for everyone else. In this case, I wasn't advocating removing all of the commas. I was merely stating that some authors (like Cormac McCarthy and Saramago, who are both fairly accessible to the average reader) may choose to take out commas where you would traditionally insert them. Such a stylistic choice isn't only reserved for books like Finnegan's Wake.
It's creative writing, so of course people can and should make creative choices. But making a choice means having enough knowledge to understand what you're choosing. I see what you're saying, @thirdwind and I agree with you. But I get a bit riled when I see people getting the idea that rules don't exist. That's the grammar nazi in me.
I would lose the words 'low' and 'high'. The meaning of the sentence remains and you remove two commas. The sentence is correct as it is, but I am not fond of it. Dave
I agree that the sentence isn't the most elegant, probably because of the sheer number of adjectives. I find (does anyone else agree?) that English loves verbs much more than adjectives. Something like "The cats growled and shrieked," might be more evocative and erase the need for complex punctuation.
Then what about: Frederick heard guttural baritones, shrill falsettos -- wavering notes carrying over long and short periods.
There seems to be a flow from the original sentence that, when you say it aloud, sounds more like what I was going for. A momentum or something. Maybe a crescendo that comes with notes. But it seems like it's not getting pulled off, so I appreciate all the picking apart in this thread to give me a fresh look at the word and sentence mechanics.