The sentence that contains a correctly punctuated parenthetical phrase is:
"Reading a book, a good daily activity, gives anyone a first-class ticket to other worlds and other times."
Which sentence contains a correctly punctuated parenthetical phrase?
Reading a book, a good daily activity, gives anyone a first-class ticket to other worlds and other times.
The children my nieces and nephews, had to wash their hands before eating dinner.
The television, the one with the broken screen is going to be discarded.
The runner the one from New Plains crossed the finish line first, and won the competition.
3 answers
How so?
The sentence "Reading a book, a good daily activity, gives anyone a first-class ticket to other worlds and other times." features a correctly punctuated parenthetical phrase because it uses commas to set off the non-essential information ("a good daily activity") from the main clause.
In this case:
- The main clause is: "Reading a book gives anyone a first-class ticket to other worlds and other times."
- The parenthetical phrase is: "a good daily activity."
The commas before and after the parenthetical phrase indicate that this information is additional and not essential to the meaning of the sentence. If you removed that phrase, the sentence would still make sense: "Reading a book gives anyone a first-class ticket to other worlds and other times."
The other sentences have punctuation issues:
-
The children my nieces and nephews, had to wash their hands before eating dinner. - The comma before "had" is incorrectly placed, as it disrupts the flow of the sentence.
-
The television, the one with the broken screen is going to be discarded. - There should be a comma after "screen" to separate the clauses properly.
-
The runner the one from New Plains crossed the finish line first, and won the competition. - There should be a comma after "runner" to correctly punctuate the parenthetical phrase.
Therefore, the first sentence is the only one with the correct punctuation surrounding the parenthetical phrase.