Understanding what is a clause is essential to produce correctly-punctuated sentences. Daily Writing Tips shared this thorough yet simple explanation in one of their newsletters. Don’t forget to test your knowledge with the quiz at the bottom!

What Is a Clause?

A clause is a statement or a question that generally consists of a subject and a verb phrase and constitutes a complete thought. Sentences can consist of a single clause, but they often include two: a main, or independent, clause and a subordinate, or dependent, clause.

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Main Clause vs. Dependent Clause

A main clause can form a complete sentence. (The preceding statement is both a clause and a sentence.) A subordinate clause, by contrast, depends on a main clause to provide the primary proposition of the sentence, which is why it’s also called a dependent clause.

“Which is why it’s also called a dependent clause” is itself a dependent clause. One could write or speak that sequence of words on its own, and listeners and readers would understand that it pertains to the previous sentence. However, in formal writing, it’s best to link such constructions to a main clause with a punctuation mark—usually a comma, though a dash can also link a main clause to a dependent clause, as it does in this sentence.

Dividing Sentences with Two Main Clauses

A sentence may contain two main clauses; in this sentence, a semicolon separates the two main clauses, although a dash may also be employed. Note that the semicolon could be replaced with a period—the segments of the sentence that precede and follow the semicolon could be formatted as a separate sentence. The preceding sentence could also be divided into two: one sentence could be formed from the clause preceding the dash, and another could consist of the clause following the dash.

Using Colons in Clauses

The sentence preceding this statement shows another punctuation mark that can distinguish one main clause from another: the colon. Note, however, that in the sentence before this one, what follows the colon is a sentence fragment—“the colon” includes a subject but no verb phrase—so that sentence does not contain a main clause and a dependent clause.

Importance of Dependent Clauses in Written Communication

It’s a good thing for written communication that English allows—even encourages—dependent clauses. Otherwise, writing would consist solely of main clauses. A succession of main clauses causes reader fatigue. Engagement in a piece of text is enhanced by a variety of sentence structures. (I’ll stop annoying you with this string of main clauses now.)

Today’s Quiz

Question 1:

Which of the following sentences correctly uses a main, or independent, clause and a subordinate, or dependent, clause?

a) The game was quite intense, as the team fought hard.

b) I enjoy playing piano also it’s a good stress buster.

c) Tea is brewing; it will be ready in a few minutes.

d) The food was delicious, however, the dessert was too sweet.

Question 2:

Which punctuation mark should you use to link a main clause to a dependent clause?

a) a colon

b) a semicolon

c) a comma

d) a period

Question 3:

Which of the following punctuation marks is also appropriate for linking dependent clauses to a main clause?

a) a dash

b) a question mark

c) a hyphen

d) an exclamation point

Question 4:

Which of the following sentences appropriately represents the structure of a sentence containing both a main and a dependent clause?

a) I believe it’s going to rain, though the weather report portends clear skies.

b) The weather report portends clear skies; nonetheless, I believe it’s going to rain.

c) The weather report that portends clear skies; I believe it’s going to rain.

d) The weather report makes me believe it’s going to rain.

Question 5:

Which one of the following sentence structures is regarded as fatiguing for the reader?

a) a sentence containing only dependent clauses

b) a sentence containing both an independent clause and a dependent clause

c) a succession of sentences containing only independent clauses

d) a succession of sentences containing both an independent clause and a dependent clause

The correct answers are as follows:

a) The game was quite intense, as the team fought hard. (The dependent clause “as the team fought hard” is correctly attached to the independent clause “The game was quite intense.”)

c) comma (Commas are commonly used to link an independent clause to a dependent clause.)

a) dash (A dash can be used ito link a dependent clause to an independent clause.)

a) I believe it’s going to rain, though the weather report portends clear skies. (This sentence is structured correctly with the independent clause “I believe it’s going to rain” and the dependent clause “though the weather report portends clear skies.”)

c) a succession of sentences containing only independent clauses (According to the lesson, a succession of independent clauses causes reader fatigue.)

A new Announcement has been posted in H-OralHist.

Symposium

Date September 9, 2024

“Older Jews and the Holocaust” Public Symposium

September 9, 2024

During the Holocaust

, older Jews were among the first to be targeted for death or deportation to killing centers. Some wrote about their experiences in diaries and letters, and information can be found in other documentation and postwar testimony. Still, little is known about how older Jews endured persecution, how they responded, and their survival strategies. This symposium will explore new research on the experiences of the elderly during and after the Holocaust, preceding the publication of an edited volume on the same topic. Instead of focusing solely on their vulnerability and death, the speakers will discuss how older individuals lived through genocide and navigated its aftermath, as well as how others reacted to the needs of older Jews.

In-Person or Virtual RSVP

Introductory and Closing Remarks/Panelists

Elizabeth Anthony, Director, Visiting Scholar Programs, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Christine Schmidt, Deputy Director and Head of Research, The Wiener Holocaust Library, London
Joanna Sliwa, Historian and Administrator of the Saul Kagan Fellowship in Advanced Shoah Studies and the University Partnership in Holocaust Studies, Conference on Jewish Material Claims against Germany

Panelists and Chairs

Rebecca Carter-Chand, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Kierra Crago-Schneider, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Maria Ferenc, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, and University of Wrocław
Katharina Friedla, Stanford University
Michael Geheran, US Military Academy, West Point
Niamh Hanrahan, University of Manchester
Borbála Klacsmann, University College Dublin
Natalya Lazar, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Roxzann-Rio Moore, Royal Holloway, University of London
Katarzyna Person, Warsaw Ghetto Museum
Patricia Heberer Rice, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Dan Stone, Royal Holloway, University of London
Xin Tong, Shanghai International Studies University
Anna Ullrich, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Lidia Zessin-Jurek, Masaryk Institute and Archives, Czech Academy of Sciences and Stockton University

Event Schedule

10:30–10:45 a.m. Introductory Remarks
10:45 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Panel I: Contexts of Persecution
12:15–12:30 p.m. Break
12:30–2 p.m. Panel II: Older People and Migration
2–3 p.m. Lunch Break
3–4:30 p.m. Panel III: Older Jews among the “Displaced”
4:30–4:45 p.m. Break
4:45–6 p.m. Panel IV: Older Jews after the Holocaust
6–6:15 p.m. Closing Remarks

This program is free and open to the public, but registration is required. If you wish to view the program virtually, you will receive a YouTube link upon registration.

Contact Email

vscholars@ushmm.org

URL

https://www.ushmm.org/online-calendar/event/mcholdrsymp0924

Mary Norris began working at The New Yorker in 1978 and spent more than three decades as a copy editor, where she worked with celebrated writers Philip Roth, Pauline Kael, and George Saunders. She is the author of Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen. Among other things, her book demystifies one of the most puzzling marks a reader is likely to encounter: the diaeresis.

If you’re reading something and you encounter a diaeresis, chances are you’re reading The New Yorker.

There is one other way to keep the “cow” out of “co-workers”: where two vowels rub up against each other, a diaeresis may be used instead of a hyphen. Often mistakenly called an umlaut, a diaeresis (pronounced “die heiresses”; it’s from the Greek for “divide,” and is devilishly hard to spell) consists of two dots carefully centered over the second vowel in such words as “naïve” and “reëlection.” An umlaut is a German thing that alters the pronunciation of a vowel (Brünnhilde) and often changes the meaning of a word: schon (adv.), already; schön (adj.), beautiful. In German, if an umlaut appears in a combination of two vowels, it will go over the first vowel, and it indicates something important: a plural, say. A diaeresis always goes over the second vowel, and it means that the vowel is leading off a separate syllable.

Most of the English-speaking world finds the diaeresis inessential. The New Yorker may be the only publication in America that uses it regularly. It’s actually a lot of trouble, these days, to get the diaeresis to stick over the vowel. The autocorrect whisks it off, and you have to go back, highlight the letter, hold down the option key while pressing the u, and then retype the appropriate letter. The question is: Why bother? Especially since the diaeresis is the single thing that readers of the letter-writing variety complain about most.

Basically, we have three options for these kinds of words: “cooperate,” “co-operate,” and “coöperate.” Back when the magazine was just developing its style, someone decided that the first could be misread and the second was ridiculous, and so adopted the third as the most elegant solution with the broadest application. By the thirties, when Mr. Hyphen was considering these things, the diaeresis was already almost obsolete, and he was through with it. He was for letting people figure things out for themselves. The fact is that, absent the two dots, most people would not trip over the “coop” in “cooperate” or the “reel” in “reelect,” though they might pronounce the “zoo” in “zoological” (and we don’t use the diaeresis for that).

Not everyone at The New Yorker is devoted to the diaeresis. Some have wondered why it’s still hanging around. Style does change sometimes. For instance, back in the eighties, the editors decided to modernize by moving the semicolon outside of the closing quotation mark. A notice went up on the bulletin board that began, “Adjust your reflexes.”

Lu Burke used to pester the style editor, Hobie Weekes, who had been at the magazine since 1928, to get rid of the diaeresis. Like Mr. Hyphen, Lu was a modern independent-minded reader, and she didn’t need to have her vowels micromanaged. Once, in the elevator, Weekes seemed to be weakening. He told her he was on the verge of changing that style and would be sending out a memo soon. And then he died.

This was in 1978. No one has had the nerve to raise the subject since.

Excerpted from Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris. Copyright © 2015 by Mary Norris. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. To see more of our favorite books on language, click here.