David'Z RantZ: Commas

(The following post is an example of the rantz I often did on my old David'Z RantZ blog. You've been warned.)

Did Wal-Mart have a freakin' sale on commas that nobody told me about?

I mean, I'm getting used to the fact that people either don't know or don't care where they use their apostrophes. I often see a word made plural by the incorrect addition of an apostrophe and an S...

Examples?

Correct: Toys.

Incorrect: Toy's.

There's a company in my town called "Two Guy's Trucking." [sic] That would only work if the business were owned by one person, a Native American known as "Two Guy."

Not to mention, "it's" only needs the apostrophe if you're writing a contraction of "it is." If you're using the possessive pronoun, such is not the case.

Examples?

Correct: "It's getting late."

Incorrect: He used the word without knowing it's meaning."

I mean, you wouldn't write things like "hi's" and "her's" instead of "his" and "hers," would you?

Maybe you would. But I digress.

Anyway, I'm seeing an awful lot of people using commas needlessly lately.

Examples?

Correct: My good friend Bob likes to watch television.
Also Correct, Technically: My good friend, Bob, likes to watch television

Incorrect: My good friend Bob, likes to watch television.

If you're not sure whether or not you're doing it correctly, try reading the sentence with a medium-sized pause after each comma. If it sounds odd, it's probably wrong.

Examples?

My good friend Bob likes to watch television.

My good friend [pause] Bob [pause] likes to watch television.

My good friend Bob [pause] likes to watch television.

The second one, although formatted in a pretty-much-accepted way, could cause confusion. Do you mean that your good friend likes to watch television, and that your good friend is named Bob? Or are you telling Bob that your good (but unnamed) friend likes to watch television?

That third one only works (verbally) if you want to build suspense and make us say "Bob does what? Bob does what? What does Bob do?!?"

I'm kidding... kinda/sorta.

End of the lesson.

And thanks for your time.

P.S. -- Anyone who leaves a comment purposely screwing up the usage of a comma, or any other punctuation mark(s), is automatically declared "predictable." And a doody-head.