Take the 2-minute tour ×  I've been trying to find an answer to
this question for some time, and have finally decided to...
well, buck up some courage and ask.  In sentences like these two
"Hello, Mary, how are you?" "Don't touch that, John, it'll
explode!"  is the comma after the name (Mary, John) a comma
splice or not? I can understand that for instances like the
following  "I can't believe, Howard, that you've put the duck in
there."  the name is technically parenthetical, but it feels to
me like the first two are clearly not. In the first two cases,
I'd be much happier if the latter was replaced by a period or
had a suitable conjunction added in. It feels to me, here, like
the vocative is being used to justify attaching two independent
clauses together in a similar manner to a comma splice, and is
thus an error.  Any thoughts/information on this? I'll
appreciate any answers anyone could give me on this, even if
they are just 'Duh, that's obvious'. It's been bugging me for a
while.  share|improve this que