Comma Usage with the word AND

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me_1234: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 78; Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2014 7:21 pm; Thanked: 1 times; Followed by:2 members

Comma Usage with the word AND

by me_1234 » Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:02 pm

In below sentence, why is there no comma between the word 'temporarily' and the word 'and'? Is it because the 2nd phrase "causing discontent..." is a continuation of the thought in the first phrase "prompting transit..."; or perhaps the 2nd phrase is caused by this first phrase?

The blizzard deposited more than a foot of snow on the train tracks, prompting the transit authority to shut down service temporarily and causing discontent among commuters who were left stranded for hours.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Thu Dec 04, 2014 8:02 pm

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by [email protected] » Fri Dec 05, 2014 12:00 am

Hi melanie.espeland,

This SC describes two effects of the blizzard. In this situation, parallelism is required (notice the verbs "prompting" and "causing" are parallel) but a comma is not. If there were more than two effects (3 or more), then the use of comma(s) would be required.

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me_1234: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 78; Joined: Sun Nov 30, 2014 7:21 pm; Thanked: 1 times; Followed by:2 members

by me_1234 » Fri Dec 05, 2014 5:45 am

Thanks Rich.

Does the reasoning have anything to do with the fact that the 2nd phrase "causing discontent" is caused by the 1st phrase "prompting transit" (i.e. they are connected and one finished thought)? Or does this have nothing to do with the comma usage?

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by MartyMurray » Fri Dec 05, 2014 4:10 pm

Maybe you are making it more complicated than it needs to be.

As Rich said, the two effects of the blizzard form a list. You could look at it the following way, and see that no comma is necessary. The blizzard deposited snow, prompting this and causing that.

So the answer is that it does not matter that the second part of the list is maybe caused by the first.

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by GMATGuruNY » Sat Dec 06, 2014 4:49 am

melanie.espeland wrote:In below sentence, why is there no comma between the word 'temporarily' and the word 'and'? Is it because the 2nd phrase "causing discontent..." is a continuation of the thought in the first phrase "prompting transit..."; or perhaps the 2nd phrase is caused by this first phrase?

The blizzard deposited more than a foot of snow on the train tracks, prompting the transit authority to shut down service temporarily and causing discontent among commuters who were left stranded for hours.

The blizzard was responsible for PROMPTING and CAUSING.
Since only two VERBing actions are attributed to the blizzard, no comma is warranted.

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