Comma Rule: Offset names when addressing people

Most of you can read this and understand the difference. One (the first) indicates a suggestion of what (who) you should eat for dinner–grandma. The second suggests to your grandmother that it is now time to eat dinner. In the first sentence, “grandma” is a direct object–that which is being eaten. Direct objects (anything receiving the action–read more about that here) are never set off by commas. When you address a person, however, their name is always set off by a comma. Thus:

“Someone’s trying to blow up the building, Mr. President. We need to escape through our top secret passageway.”

“You’re the coolest person on the entire planet, Ultimate Grammar Nerd, and I love you.”

“Charles, please don’t stand on my head.”

Notice that a name can be offset at the end, middle, or beginning of a sentence. If it’s in the middle, it should have a comma on either side of it.

See this? How is that not the perfect example of adorable perfection?

One of the most common times I see people make this error is in emails, and it’s easy to understand the lack of understanding. Here are two ways of starting an email:

Dear Ultimate Grammar Nerd,

Hi, Ultimate Grammar Nerd,

But wait! Why does one have a comma and the other not? “Dear” is simply an adjective describing “Ultimate Grammar Nerd” (and I am very, very dear, you have to admit) and thus is not offset by a comma. You wouldn’t say “Hairy, ogre.” Basically, it’s the same thing as starting off an email just with a person’s name, but you happen to be adding an extra adjective in front. You could also replace “dear” with “all-knowing” or “awesome” when addressing me. But the second opening line follows the format of the previous examples–you are stating something to someone and then including their name for extra clarification, so that name is offset.

Now, all good? Pretty close. There is ONE additional error in our grandmother-eating image. First person to find it gets a prize!