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Most of us were taught to place a comma before a sentence-ending “too”:
We’re going shopping, out to dinner, and then to a movie, too.
But is that comma really necessary? “Too” in this context means “also,” but you’re not likely to see the sentence written like this:
We’re going shopping, out to dinner, and then to a movie, also.
No one seems to know how this particular quirk started, but it’s firmly entrenched in our over-cluttered writers’ brains. Even journalists do it, and modern-day practice is to strip news stories of as many commas as possible without hopelessly obfuscating meaning. Still, that niggling comma before “too” persists.
The editors at the Chicago Manual of Style share their opinion:
Use commas with too only when you want to emphasize an abrupt change of thought:
He didn’t know at first what hit him, but then, too, he hadn’t ever walked in a field strewn with garden rakes. In most other cases, commas with this short adverb are unnecessary.
The bottom line is, there’s no clear rule that either specifies using the comma or forbids it. It’s the writer’s choice. The rules of grammar don’t often allow writers to have choices. It’s kind of nice to be thrown a bone from time to time.
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Choices?!? Ack! I already have to come up with the words to say, now I must choose how to punctuate it. I don’t know that my poor brain can handle it. *sigh*
Seriously though. I tend to not use the comma, even though my law-abiding brain tells me I should. I’ve always thought it looks odd with the comma.
I try to read my sentence out loud to see where emphasis and breath would fall into the mix.
Nutmeag, I totally agree about the choices. Gives us so much power, but then makes us feel inadequate if we don’t have a real justification as to why we put the comma where we did!
Interesting, first timer to this blog and dedicated reader of “dailyblogtips” Daniel is definitely the man.
This is one of my weaknesses, proper punctuation so I figured I better make this blog a daily reader for me as well.
Thanks for the post!
I find too to be a strange thing. It feels, when coupled with then or a similar phrase, more like a parenthetical expression. And I tend to use plenty of parentheses, but also use commas to set off parenthetical expressions (too).
OK, phrases and clauses, then. I trace the construct, to “also .. too” in that first paragraph.
Too, when set off by commas, is not a simple word with a quirky comma rule. That dangling too always hooks into an active part of the sentence – or you don’t need to use the commas. You don’t use a comma for too little or too big, or too loud. It isn’t the word, it is the sentence construction that demands the comma.
I could as well lament the commas needed for red and green in a sentence like: He chased the bouncy, red, green, and blue ball across the yard. (Separate multiple adjectives for the same noun with commas.)
“We’re going shopping, out to dinner, and then to a movie, also.”
This sounds pretty natural to me. Maybe it’s a regional thing.
I might hear “as well” in that position, too.
On the other hand, I, too, have pondered whether or not that comma is always needed. Much like other conjunctive adverbs, though, it, too, seems to require that comma.