ShmoopTube

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Here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by the fortune cookie.

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Which proved far more popular than its predecessor the misfortune cookie.

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How would you correct this underlined segment from the passage, if at all?

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cookies, as we know them today?

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And here are the potential answers...

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If commas surround a particular sentence element, there’s a good chance that element is nonessential.

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This means that if the element were taken away the sentence wouldn’t lose anything too important.

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In the sentence in question, however, every element is essential.

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The author is specifically referring to “the invention of fortune cookies as we know them today.”

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This article will only discuss modern fortune cookies;

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caveman fortune cookies will be dealt with at another time.

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Since we know that everything in the sentence is essential, we can quickly eliminate the

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answer choices that contain commas.

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Option (D) can go because it randomly separates the noun “today” from the rest of the sentence.

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(A) is wrong because placing a comma in front of “as” makes it seem like the rest of

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sentence, which includes the verb, is not important.

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And choice (B) separates the phrase “as we know them today.”

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This omits the fact that we’re talking about modern fortune cookies,

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not ancient ones--or futuristic ones for that matter.

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The correct answer is (C), which recognizes the essential nature of everything in the

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sentence by using no commas whatsoever.

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Hm, we wonder if modern fortune cookies are able to predict what

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fortune cookies will be like in the future.

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