<p>I have come across a question in Writing section which I don't quite understand and
I was hoping someone can give me a hand here.</p>
<p>Q. I have tried every shawl, shrug, and scarf with this maroon dress but, to my consternation, none of them seems right for the casual yet put-together look I desire.</p>
<p>According to the SAT study guide, this sentence does not contain any error.</p>
<p>But whey you have independent clause + independent clause
isn't it independent clause + comma + conjunction + independent clause?</p>
<p>this sentence contains (conjunction + comma)--"but," -- instead of (comma + conjunction), and it appears to be an error. Could you help me understand why this is not an error?</p>
<p>Are you saying that you think the sentence should be</p>
<p>“I have tried every shawl, shrug, and scarf with this maroon dress, but, to my consternation, none of them seem right for the casual yet put-together look I desire.”?</p>
<p>I believe that both constructions (the one above, and the original one) are considered acceptable.</p>
<p>I looked it up; this was one of those “Choose the underlined portion containing an error” questions. The choices were as follows:</p>
<p>“I [have] tried every shawl, shrug, and scarf with this maroon dress [but,] to my [consternation], none of them [seem] right for the casual yet put-together look I desire. [No error]”</p>
<p>I believe the comma that you wish to insert should appear right after “dress.” The question doesn’t give you the option of changing this part of the sentence, though. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think these questions never let you insert punctuation attached to words preceding an underlined clause.</p>
<p>In general: For these sort of questions, I think it’s a good idea to avoid trying to make the sentence perfect. They (the sentences) often contain awkward wording, needlessly vague or long clauses, etc. that really should be edited out. And the temptation to do so is huge. But if we’re not given the option to rewrite the sentence in its entirety, we’re stuck nothing more than the options that the question gives us. In such a situation, I think that the “right” answer is usually obtained by considering the options very strictly (e.g., the stuff I was saying about which portions were underlined) and by applying grammar rules very literally.</p>
<p>“When you have independent clause + independent clause isn’t it independent clause + comma + conjunction + independent clause?”</p>
<p>This is not a general rule. Have you seen it written somewhere?</p>
<p>Consider</p>
<p>“I love chocolate but Mary prefers peanut brittle.”</p>
<p>It’s hard to imagine a situation where a “,” is required before the conjunction “but”. Here it’s more or less obvious that the comma (and the forced pause) is undesirable. Sometimes for long and complex sentences the comma before the conjunction is a good idea – if only to help readability.</p>
<p>The original sentence is very well written English. I imagine that it’s something that I would see in a 19th century novel. I don’t agree that this is “awkward” in any way.</p>
<p>Thank you so much for your help!
I thought it should be</p>
<p>“I have tried every shawl, shrug, and scarf with this maroon dress, but to my consternation, none of them seems right for the casual yet put-together look I desire.”</p>
<p>with “but,” replaced with “,but”…
so this can happen for any other conjunction I presume?</p>
<p>like independent clause + and + comma + independent clause?</p>
<p>The “,” is very desirable in those cases where the independent clauses are long. It precedes the conjunction. And yes the conjunction can be “and” or “but” etc.</p>
<p>In the original sentence the author very much wanted “to my consternation” to be treated as an aside. Think of it as the author was trying to say “by the way” and he did this by using the comma.</p>