More accurately, you can watch two writers think: My husband and me.

I always type the gardening columns he writes for our newspaper. Yesterday he dictated this sentence:

Eggfruit trees flower spring and summer and bear fruit in autumn and winter.

Yes, there really is a plant called eggfruit! But our concern is with the wording of that sentence. It’s grammatically correct – but readers are likely to be confused by the “spring and summer and bear fruit” wording.

I suggested this revision:

Eggfruit trees flower spring and summer, bearing fruit in autumn and winter.

That version is also grammatically correct, but it sounds awkward – at least it did when we reread it.

What to do? Think, writers, think!

And we did. We zeroed in on the original problem – that repeated and. If we could just get a comma in there – that would help.

Wait a minute! There’s a rule that you should use a comma when you join two sentences with and. Yes! Fist pump!

Here are our two sentences, elegantly joined with a comma + and:

Eggfruit trees flower spring and summer, and they bear fruit in autumn and winter.

Problem solved: An easy-to-read sentence that says exactly what he wanted to say. To learn more about this comma rule, click here and read about Comma Rule 2.