Vocative Comma Guide: How to Use Vocative Commas Correctly

A vocative comma is a punctuation mark used to indicate a direct address in the context of a larger sentence. When you speak directly to another person, you use the vocative case. The vocative comma isolates that vocative case from other phrases and independent clauses within a sentence. It helps identify your addressee without changing the overall meaning of the sentence.

Linguists trace the vocative case to the Latin language, where the word vocative has the same root as vocation, which means "a calling." You therefore use vocative commas to call out to people via direct address. An example is saying: "Tell me, Bob, what you plan to do about this." The vocative commas surrounding "Bob" make it clear that we are directly addressing him.

The English language allows you to use vocative commas at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence. In most cases, you use commas to set off a proper noun from the rest of the sentence, but vocative commas can also set off common nouns.

1. 1. Beginning of the sentence: "Marlene, will you call the supplier?"
2. 2. Middle of the sentence: "I know you called the supplier, Marlene, but can you do it again?"
3. 3. End of the sentence: "Thank you for dealing with that supplier, Marlene."

When using vocative commas in the middle of the sentence, take care to avoid inadvertently creating a comma splice or run-on sentence by connecting two independent clauses with only commas. Independent clauses can only be joined by conjunctions, colons, or semicolons; it is grammatically incorrect to only use commas to join independent clauses.

To avoid creating a comma splice, you can break your independent clauses into two distinct sentences. The noun or noun phrase bracketed with vocative commas can be part of either the first sentence or the second sentence, depending upon the context. For example, instead of “We tried that, Marlene, let’s do something else,” you could write, “We tried that, Marlene. Let’s do something else.”

The following sentences show how vocative commas appear in the English language.

1. 1. In a salutation: "Hi, John. I hope you are well." (Note that this form of a vocative comma is optional. You may also write "Hi John" with no comma.)
2. 2. In the middle of a sentence: "And believe me, ladies and gentlemen, when I say I've done this magic trick many times."
3. 3. To end a sentence with a direct address: "I hope you were paying attention, Charles."

Vocative commas and Oxford commas each appear with regularity in grammar books and style guides. However, these two grammar terms have different meanings.

• Vocative comma: A vocative comma is used to bracket the subject of direct address, as in: "Tell me, Chester, what were you doing last night?"
• Oxford comma: An Oxford comma comes at the end of a list, directly before the conjunction, as in: "I bought eggs, bread, milk, and lettuce at the store." The final comma in that sentence (before "and") is the Oxford comma. Many style guides, such as The Chicago Manual of Style and APA style, suggest using the Oxford comma in all lists.

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