Question

noredink lq 17 commas for clarity question 9 of 26 add or remove commas, if necessary, until the sentence has correct punctuation. i explained to, mayor quimby, that ketchup doesnt work well as face paint!

Explanation:

In the sentence "I explained to, Mayor Quimby, that ketchup doesn't work well as face paint!", the comma after "to" is incorrect. The phrase "Mayor Quimby" is a direct address and the commas around it are correct for setting off the name, but the comma after "to" is unnecessary. So we remove the comma after "to". The correct sentence is "I explained to Mayor Quimby, that ketchup doesn't work well as face paint!" Wait, no, actually, when "Mayor Quimby" is a direct object of "explained to", the commas around "Mayor Quimby" are incorrect. The correct punctuation is "I explained to Mayor Quimby that ketchup doesn't work well as face paint!" Wait, no, let's recall: when you have a direct address or a parenthetical element, you use commas. But here, "Mayor Quimby" is the object of the preposition "to", so the structure is "explained to [person] that...". So the commas around "Mayor Quimby" are incorrect. So we remove both commas around "Mayor Quimby". So the original sentence has an extra comma after "to" and unnecessary commas around "Mayor Quimby". Wait, the original sentence is "I explained to, Mayor Quimby, that ketchup doesn't work well as face paint!". So we need to remove the comma after "to" and the commas around "Mayor Quimby". So the correct sentence is "I explained to Mayor Quimby that ketchup doesn't work well as face paint!". Wait, but maybe the commas around "Mayor Quimby" are intended to set it off as a parenthetical, but in that case, the sentence would be "I, Mayor Quimby, explained that...", but no, the subject is "I" and the verb is "explained to". So the correct punctuation is to remove the comma after "to" and the commas around "Mayor Quimby". So the revised sentence is "I explained to Mayor Quimby that ketchup doesn't work well as face paint!".

Answer:

The correct sentence is "I explained to Mayor Quimby that ketchup doesn't work well as face paint!" (Remove the comma after "to" and the commas around "Mayor Quimby".)