Commas in dialogue | Punctuation | Grammar | Khan Academy

- [Voiceover] Hello,
Grammarians, and hello, Paige.

- [Voiceover] Hi, David.

- [Voiceover] So, we're gonna talk about

using commas in dialogue.

So I've got these two sentences here

that I have removed all
the punctuation from

because I recognize that figuring out

where to put commas when you are reporting

someone else's speech, you know,

for a newspaper article
or a piece of fiction

or whatever it is,

can be quite confusing.

And so here's basically
what you need to know

is that commas in dialogue
essentially function

as runways.

It can ramp you up to get going

for an utterance

and take you down and land.

Paige, would you read me this sentence?

- [Voiceover] "Guillermo
said, I have no idea

"where I put that moonstone."

- [Voiceover] So, we're
starting into this sentence,

and we're gonna use this comma as a ramp

to divide between the utterance

and what's called the dialogue tag.

"So Guillermo said," comma,

"I have no idea where
I put that moonstone."

This is the end of his utterance.

We're gonna put a period here.

However, sentence number two--

- [Voiceover] "They're probably pirates,

"Roxane said."

- [Voiceover] So here, since we're putting

the dialogue tag after
the reported speech,

this were otherwise going to be a period.

We're gonna put a comma here.

"They're probably pirates,"

comma, "Roxane said," period.

And why is this?

It's because we're trying to separate

between the reported speech

and the dialogue tag itself.

So, in the event

that this were a question, however,

you would use a question mark

or if it were an exclamation,

you would use an exclamation point,

but if it were going to just be a period,

you wouldn't do this.

You wouldn't say, "They're
probably pirates,"

period, "Roxane said."

You would say, "They're probably pirates,"

comma, "Roxane said."

- [Voiceover] Yeah.

- [Voiceover] I know
that's kinda confusing.

But that is the style that
we abide by in English.

- [Voiceover] Right, so as you said,

comma with dialogue is pretty much

acting as a runway.

- [Voiceover] Okay.

- [Voiceover] So with the first sentence,

"Guillermo said," comma, and then--

- [Voiceover] So just
kinda like, take off--

- [Voiceover] Right, you're getting like,

ramped up into the dialogue,

and then with the second one,

it's like the plane is landing,

and, "They're probably pirates,"

and then the dialogue ends.

- [Voiceover] Cool.

- [Voiceover] But there
has to be a comma in there

to end it.

- [Voiceover] So if the
statement were going

to end with a period,

we'd use a comma in reported dialogue

when the tag follows the reported speech.

- [Voiceover] That's right.

- [Voiceover] Otherwise,
we'd use all the other

relevant punctuation marks.

- [Voiceover] Yeah.

- [Voiceover] Okay, cool.

So this is like the only time ever

when you can end a sentence with a comma.

- [Voiceover] Yeah, pretty much.

- [Voiceover] Woah, that's awesome.

- [Voiceover] Yeah.

- [Voiceover] So that's how
you use commas in dialogue.

You can learn anything.

David out.

- [Voiceover] Paige out.