Comma Safety

I'd been pondering what to write about for this blog post, tossing around random ideas, when today I got a mass email about firework safety from my apartment managers.  The email reminded us that fireworks are dangerous, and that they're not allowed on the property.  It also contained some facts about firework risks.

These are the facts that were listed:

• Most amateur firework injuries are to children.
• Sparklers can burn at temperatures as hot as 1200 degrees Fahrenheit and range up to 2000 degrees.
• Every Fourth of July fireworks are the leading cause of fires
• The National Fire Protection Association warns that there is no safe use of amateur fireworks and urges you to attend a public fireworks display instead of using them yourself.

Did you notice anything?

Well, first, I noticed that the sentence of the first bullet point is awkwardly written.  It could have been easily fixed with a simple verb change: Most amateur firework injuries happen to children.

While that was interesting, what really caught my eye was the third bullet point.  As a side, it was the only bullet point that didn't have a period at the end.  But my true focus was on the lack of a comma, which caused confusion when first reading it.

"Every Fourth of July fireworks are the leading cause of fires."

When I first read it, I thought that "Fourth of July" was a noun phrase that was modifying "fireworks," and was confused because "every" didn't match up with the plural "fireworks."  My brain supplied possible alternate sentences such as, "Every Fourth of July firework is the leading cause of fires," or "All Fourth of July fireworks are the leading cause of fires."

It was then I realized that there was a comma missing after "July."  The phrase "Every Fourth of July" is a dependent noun phrase that sets up the following noun clause: "fireworks are the leading cause of fires."

The phrase should be punctuated and read as such: "Every Fourth of July, fireworks are the leading cause of fires."

So remember, folks, on this fast-approaching Fourth of July to practice firework safety, and also to practice comma safety in your every day lives.