Prudent Advice for My Baby Daughter is the fruit of author Jaime Morrison Curtis's late night musings on what she would want her young daughter to know. It's filled with smart, practical advice, emphasizes ethics and kindness, and reminds all of us to see the beauty in life inside as well as out. I just love this little blue book, and what brings me even more delight is its usefulness as a grammar exemplar!

Look at #134: "You should want to be with someone who wants to be with you," and #135: "When you drop someone at home, wait until he or she gets inside before driving away." What lovely examples of how to use a comma with an introductory adverb clause ("when") and with a restrictive relative clause ("who wants to be with you").

We use the comma after a long adverbial clause (adverbial because it begins with "when" and clause because it has a subject and verb, "you drop") at the beginning of a sentence. We don't use a comma when a clause restricts the meaning of the noun it modifies. Here, the noun is "someone" and the clause is "who wants" --  the clause is restrictive because "who wants to be with you" restricts the great group of "someones" with whom we might want to be.

Examine the elegance of #157 and #158: "If you want to leave a party and you don't have a good excuse, spill something on yourself" and "If you love someone, tell them." Well, maybe the instructions in the first may not lead to an elegant action, but the spirit of kindness to the host is elegance personified, and the instruction in the second is simple joy. Both sentences, of course, are clear samples of introductory "if" clauses, or conditionals, and in each case that conditional clause introduces a command -- "spill" and "tell." Each clause is separated from the command in the main clause by a comma, no matter how long or short they are.

Wow, prudent advice, expressed with prudent use of commas. What more can a mom ask for?

What advice would you give a youngster about life? About commas? Let us know!

Ellen Scordato has 25 years' book publishing experience as an editor, copy editor, proofreader, and managing editor. She's now a partner in The Stonesong Press, a nonfiction book producer and agency. In addition to her work at Stonesong, Ellen has taught grammar, punctuation, and style at the New School for more than 12 years in the English Language Studies department and taught English as a Second Language at Cabrini Immigrant Services.