to think that if you send a letter from a school that might go public - you check for comma splices

[katmanwho]

School said it would give pupils bread and butter if they didn't have money.
Parents complain. Goes national in the news.
School retracts.

The letter is here:

www.albanacademy.org/assets/schoolmealsletterretraction-1.pdf

Part of it:

Following a number of parental concerns regarding the recent school
meals letter we have decided to rethink our policy and will not be
introducing the new system outlined in that letter.
I apologise if this has caused any offence, this was not our intention.

The letter itself was intended to explain the situation and trial a policy
that has been successfully adopted by other schools

Actually - commas seem lacking in the first sentence as well.

This is not a chatty letter. This is an official retraction.

Could do better

I agree with you, OP. I worry that someone running a school appears to be unable to write a letter in clear, accurate English.

Maybe that was their problem in the first place.

They wrote such a muddled letter explaining the new policy and everyone got up in arms.

Given the fact that quite a few people (including teachers) don't know about comma splices, there's a probability the head might not know what's wrong.

I know a head who told the children in assembly that "adverbs were words ending in 'ly'". Cue children thinking 'jolly' was an adverb. Or 'lolly'.

I have a degree and a professional career. I was educated in the 1980s. The only time I have ever heard of a comma splice is on MN. This thread plus one other to be precise. It is obviously a niche concern.

I have an English degree and have no idea what a comma splice is.

The only time I have ever heard of a comma splice is on MN

Do you use "comma splices" in your professional writing?

I write reports with complex sentences,they are wrong with a comma splice.

Probably. As I haven't heard of them until very recently, I assume I've been liberally scattering them throughout my professional writing. None of my colleagues have ever brought them to my attention either, despite all documentation being subject to review. We are all blissful in our ignorance.

Ok having just googled what they are I don't think they're something people would check for. You either know intuitively know how to write without them or you don't.

More then enough detail on conjunctions, connectives, dashes, semicolons etc than you need to ever know

www.ucl.ac.uk/english/current/Punctuation_guide

As I haven't heard of them until very recently, I assume I've been liberally scattering them throughout my professional writing

Are you checking now

I heard of the name a few years ago but I knew that using a comma that way was incorrect a long time ago.

I intend to use commas like confetti in future.

Who says they're wrong though? Errors such as "would of" don't make sense. But decisions about whether to use commas in formal reports are just a matter of convention.

Be careful. This might be a true story.

On the bottom of the warrant, the czar had written: “Pardon impossible, to be sent to Siberia.”

The Czarina changed the punctuation so that the instructions read instead as follows: “Pardon, impossible to be sent to Siberia.” The man was set free.

OP I am aware of the ways in which commas affect the meanings of sentences. However, in the case of the letter you cite, there are far worse problems. IMO it helps if we are aware of the reasons for rules - then we can ignore them if we see fit. Robotically following rules does not make for good writing. There needs to be a questioning intelligence behind the writing.

I suspect that comma splices are rather like split infinitives in so far as they are not actually incorrect. However, somepeople like to present them as such for one upmanship purposes.

My opinion is people writing communications need to be able to write clear English. There will be parents reading for whom English is not their first language/ literacy is a challenge

I think do think that it depends on the sentence. If the independent clauses are short, then using a comma rather than a semi-colon or a conjunction is likely a good stylistic choice. (I came, I saw, I conquered.) But if the clauses are longer, and the concepts complex, then I think you need more conventional punctuation. I think many people just do this instinctively.

I don't dislike them for the purposes of oneupmanship. I just feel that there are so many beautiful, eager little punctuation marks out there, dying to be of assistance, and every time, even when they'd do a much better job, we reach for the same old comma. Isn't it the poor, denigrated semicolon's time to shine? Will someone think of the sturdy, steadfast colon? Or even that trustworthy old stalwart, the full stop?

Or even an en-dash, for that matter.

Crtl-

Bugger

Ctrl-

RealHuman, I love semi-colons. I think they're very elegant. They're my favourite form of punctuation.

My second favourite is the Oxford comma.

Might write a list of my top-five punctuation marks...

I've had a look at their website - it seems the Head can use a semi-colon (note the hyphen - I can't help it).

(wonders if the full stop is in the right place with the bracket)

There is also a newsletter I would love to link to. It's got nothing to do with punctuation but it would make a classic AIBU.

www.albanacademy.org/assets/ladsdadsltrmarch20152.pdf

OMG, apart from absence of apostrophes, only boys with a male carer role model in their lives can have their awareness of testicular cancer raised then. Ha, the tea Dons wouldn't have stop for that sort of nonsense. They'd have sent Vinnie round to sort them out!

Real Dons, sorry.

Told you it would be a good AIBU

Am going to send it to AFC Wimbledon and ask them to have a whole stadium day set aside for testicular cancer/men's stuff when Plough Lane opens again. A proper football team will get this sorted.