Hello Everyone: This is my first blog post. I was wondering on the correct usage of commas in a sentence containing the word "thus" where the sentence is not a compound sentence. I noticed the thread: https://www.writingforums.org/showthread.php?t=18110 which included "thus" as part of a compound sentence, but that did not help me. My sentence is: The electromagnetic noise is random and thus hard to quantify. Should I place commas around "thus," leave the sentence how it is, or do something else? As noted by the comma usage in that last sentence, I am from the United States. Therefore, if there is a difference between the usage in British and American English, then I would prefer to know the American version. Thank you in advance for your help. BP Ramone
Hi I think you may be over-complicating your sentence. There may be nothing wrong, in a technical sense, with putting commas where you say, but equally I don't think there's anything wrong with the sentence if you use no commas at all. I would also prefer "therefore" to "thus" but that is purely a personal view.
Imagine you used "so is" instead of "thus": The electromagnetic noise is random and so is hard to quantify.Do you feel any temptation to put commas around "so is"? Well, actually the equivalent would be commas just around "so". You can do it, if you want the "thus" (or "so") to be an aside, but you certainly don't need to (at least in the UK!)
According to Merriam-Webster's Manual for Writers and Editors (my trusty sidekick), commas around thus are optional.
