When independent clauses are not truly independent?

Question

If I write *My car can go pretty far and it gets good mileage* I have combined two independent clauses to create a compound sentence. I might just as easily write *My car can go pretty far. And it gets good mileage.* But if I write *Surprisingly, my car can go pretty far and it gets good mileage*, meaning that it is a surprise my car has both of these attributes, then the independence of each clause seems diminished, because one without the other is not surprising. In other words, I cannot write *Surprisingly, my car can go pretty far. And it gets good mileage.* Is there a way to describe this difference? Is there an overriding term for two or more independent clauses that actually do not mean the same thing when not joined?

Answer 1

Hello! Let’s back up a step, please. When joining two independent clauses using a conjunction, you must add a comma before the conjunction: **My car can go pretty far, and it gets good mileage.** Now, in order to make the introductory word correspond to both independent clauses, you could write, **Surprisingly, my car can go pretty far, yet it gets good mileage.** That way, you connect the second clause to the first, and therefore, to the introductory word. So you can write, **Surprisingly, my car can go pretty far. Yet it gets good mileage.** Your original attempt, using and, doesn’t quite make the connection.

However, you can forget about all those complicated directions. I would guess the car can go pretty far because it gets good mileage. Yes? My car can go pretty far because it gets good mileage. I like this one better: My car can go pretty far; it gets good mileage. I try not to make grammar more complex than it is!