Which of the sentences below has NO errors in punctuation?
a)The Great Fire of London lasted from September 2 to September 5 1666.
(there should be commas in the dates)
b)As Pepys and Mr. Moone walked through the city they were shocked at the destruction.
(I think there should be a comma between city and they)
c)Eighty percent of London was destroyed in the fire, and it took years to rebuild it.
d)People stopped buying wigs because they were afraid the wigs were spreading the germs that caused the Plague.
I think the correct answer is d?
I called my school for help and the tutor insists that the answer is c?
I don't understand why d is not correct?????
I believe both c and d are correct.
Sentence c needs a comma after "fire" because it's a compound sentence.
Sentence d needs no commas because there are no introductory subordinate clauses nor non-essential clauses in the sentence.
Thanks, I understood after she explained that c was correct, but she insisted that D was incorrect and that there needed to be a comma before because--and I disagreed. It doesn't even SOUND right with a comma there.
I agree with Writeacher.
D is punctuated correctly because a comma should not be placed before "because." (Note that I didn't place a comma before "because" in the above sentence. Writeacher did put a comma in her sentence either.
No, there should be no comma before "because." It's a subordinating conjunction, and it doesn't fall into either #3 or #4 in this particularly good list of explanations:
http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm
Writeacher DIDN'T put a comma in her sentence.
Actually, the correct answer is c) "Eighty percent of London was destroyed in the fire, and it took years to rebuild it." This sentence has no errors in punctuation.
In sentence a), you correctly identified that there should be commas in the dates. The corrected sentence would be: "The Great Fire of London lasted from September 2 to September 5, 1666."
In sentence b), you correctly identified that there should be a comma between "city" and "they." The corrected sentence would be: "As Pepys and Mr. Moone walked through the city, they were shocked at the destruction."
In sentence d), there is no obvious punctuation error. The sentence is grammatically correct and does not require any additional punctuation.
So, the correct answer is c) "Eighty percent of London was destroyed in the fire, and it took years to rebuild it."