Guide to spelling, punctuation and grammar

C
OMMAS
Commas cause many students difficulties: when to use them, when not
to use them. Some students think the best solution is to insert commas
all over the place so that their written work suffers from what we might
call ‘comma-itis’, a rash of unwanted commas cluttering up their work.
Look at this example:
The rock star, reacted angrily, to the interviewer’s questions, and
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RAMMAR AND ACCURACY

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threatened to walk out there and then, his manager, persuaded him
to stay which the disgruntled singer reluctantly did. The questions,
continued to irritate him however until finally he walked out, later
he issued a statement, denying he had acted out of pique and
blaming, the stupid questions asked by the interviewer.
The correct version is:
The rock star reacted angrily to the interviewer’s question and
threatened to walk out there and then. His manager persuaded him
to stay, which the disgruntled singer reluctantly did. The questions
continued to irritate him, however, until finally he walked out. Later
he issued a statement denying he had acted out of pique and
blaming the stupid questions asked by the interviewer.
Note the differences between these two versions. The examples of
‘comma-itis’, the use of unnecessary and incorrect commas, have
vanished. Look at where commas have been correctly used and decide
why they have been inserted there.
P
RACTICE
(
ANSWERS ON PAGE
157–158)
1. Read the following passage aloud and decide where one sentence
should end and another begin. Rewrite the passage with the correct
punctuation.
Television chefs have achieved a level of fame that is quite
staggering after all they are only cooks and yet they are treated as
major celebrities what does this tell us about our present day
culture certainly we pay too much attention to food and drink we
forget that half the world is starving while we indulge ourselves all
these food programmes on television only make matters worse
celebrity chefs have a lot to answer for
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OW TO WRITE ESSAYS

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2. The following passage has been attacked by a rash of ‘comma-itis’.
Rewrite it, getting rid of unnecessary commas and leaving only those
that are justified by the meaning. 
Reality programmes on television, scrape the barrel as far as
entertainment is concerned, the Big Brother programmes, whether
they are those series involving so-called celebrities or ordinary
members of the public, are particularly crass and, encourage
viewers to be voyeurs, watching other people live their lives is, not
a healthy pastime for anyone, we are being turned into a nation of
couch potatoes, who are more concerned about other people’s lives,
than our own. Some people, are desperate to be famous, which is
why they are willing to do almost anything in front of the cameras,
television authorities however should not be encouraging, that
pathetic tendency