Re: Sentence Structure in Harry Potter

[Vickie Rabourn <vrabourn@CALINET.COM>]

I just finished Harry Potter and the Socerer's Stone and was disappointed
to find scores of complete sentences separated by commas rather than full
stops.  This is done in dialog (no matter who is speaking), as well as
narrative.  For example, on page 264 of the Scholastic paperback edition,
in paragraph one, Ron says, "You could look more cheerful, Harry, we've got
a week before we find out how badly we've done, there's no need to worry
yet."  This cannot even be classified as a run-on sentence.  Since there
are three subjects and three predicates, there are three complete sentences
that should be separated by full stops.  Several lines below, there is
narrative that reads, "Ron couldn't get worked up, it was too hot."  Once
again, two sentences are linked by a comma rather than a period, semicolon,
or conjunction.  This error, repeated over and over, was very distracting
to me.  I wonder if any of you noticed this too and found it disconcerting.
 I hope the other Harry Potter books don't have the same error.  The thing
that bothers me the most about this is that when I help students with their
research papers, I see this same mistake all the time.  I am forever giving
students a brief explanantion of what constitutes a full sentence and how
to do the appropriate punctuation.  Now when these same students read Harry
Potter, they can easily see countless published examples of this error by
the hottest writer around.  How frustrating.  I wonder why Scholastic's
editors aren't more on the ball.

So, tell me, is it just me, or did this bother any of you too?

Vickie Rabourn
vrabourn@calinet.com
Los Osos Middle School Librarian
San Luis Coastal Unified School District
San Luis Obispo County, CA

"And he reads to them, as he does every night,
as if watering them, as if turning earth at their feet."
-- James Salter

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