<p>I was just looking over a missed answer on the Blue Book Pract. Test #2 and am not sure how this is correct. This is the sentence: "A recent version of Shakespeare's Rome and Juliet drew harsh reviews from purists, those who expect filmmakers to follow the original text exactly."
Is that not a comma splice?</p>
<p>No because the comma is setting off the extra information at the end (clarifying what a purist is).</p>
<p>Right. The phrase “those who expect…exactly” is an appositive. It’s a phrase (in this case, actually a kind of complicated mishmash of a pronoun and a subordinate clause and an infinitive phrase) that is placed adjacent to a noun (in this case, purists) and gives another name for, or another way of expressing the idea of, that noun.</p>
<p>The sentence you have copied isn’t a comma splice because everything after the comma–“those who expect…exactly”–does not contain an independent clause. Really. Try setting it by itself as a sentence.</p>
<p>“Those who expect filmmakers to follow the original text exactly.” Yes…what about them? It doesn’t express a complete thought.</p>
<p>“A recent version of Shakespeare’s Rome and Juliet drew harsh reviews from purists, those who expect filmmakers to follow the original text exactly.”</p>
<p>“those who expect filmmakers to follow the original text exactly.”-- cannot stand alone (not independent clause) so its not a comma splice.</p>
<p>Alright, I get it now. I appreciate all the feedback! Just now learning a lot of these grammar rules, so I am not all that proficient.</p>
<p>As an aside, the Yuniversity guys had a great post about the recently. You can google “The YUniversity Comma Splice” and it should show up. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>