Random Grammar Question

This is a question for English majors.

Take the following sentence:

"Our beings flared with passion, bearing witness of one accord to the man who made us whole."

Our beings flared with passion is the independent clause. In contrast, bearing witness of one accord to the man who made us whole is the dependent clause. There is no conjunction here so I believe that's irrelevant to the question.

The book that I'm using as reference hasn't offered much clarity as to when commas should be used. So I looked online, where I found that a comma should link the two if the dependent clause comes first but not if it comes afterward.

This would suggest that the comma in the aforementioned passage is inappropriate. However:

"Our beings flared with passion bearing witness of one accord to the man who made us whole."

My gut tells me that there should be a comma here.

While it's true that, for the purposes of most people 99% of the time, it doesn't matter if your writing abides to the rules so strictly or not, I would like a precise answer to this question if possible.

Alright, it seems that was a participle phrase and not entirely dependent . So let me use a different sentence for reference:

"I opted to stay out of it, keen not to meddle in the disputes of others."

I am not claiming any official 'major' or professional expertise in English, I can tell you I have excellent command of the English language it's just I type lazily at times (and my lazy is genuinely most people's average unless I'm really tired and typoing).

I can tell you that this also confused me for a long time and what I ultimately discovered is that the 'correct' time to use commas is no different than the correct time to flirt with someone a little. It's difficult to crack, requires nuance and basically takes mimicking when others who you know are good at English and noticing when they do and don't use it.

I want you to ignore every rule you ever read about commas (except during listing which is mechanical) and think of this question:

"If I were to say this sentence all in one go, how unpleasant and unnatural would it sound and where would most people who speak fluent English prefer the pause to be?"

^ That was a long sentence, some would even call it bad English. The secret to good writing is having most of your sentences smooth to read in one's head even if it's not being read out loud. Even deaf people 'pause' while reading, it's also why good speakers don't have 'uhs' and 'erms' or 'y-yknow' Jordan Peterson style stammering. Instead, what they do instead is allow themselves to breathe in deep and pause, pacing their speech so it all hits the ear (or in this case, eye) at an appropriate time for one intaking it to truly soak it in.

I would just structure this backward.

I was keen to avoid meddling in the disputes of others, thus I opted out of getting involved.

'keen not to' is a tonal juxatposition, keenness is leaning into affirmative tone whereas 'not to' would be a hesitant tone (idc if this is official or not, I'm telling you why it's faulty English even if it's technically correct).

Alright, I think I answered my own question:

As for the latter sentence, there's an implied "being (keen not to)". Hence, the same rule applies as for participles.

I think I'm good now. Thank you me for answering my own question. But if anyone has further clarification, feel free to chime in.

I can't give you a hard and fast rule to follow, but I'm 95% sure you and RM are correct that there should be a comma there.

This sentence is actually a really interesting example. One could put another comma in it:

"If I were to say this sentence all in one go, how unpleasant and unnatural would it sound, and where would most people who speak fluent English prefer the pause to be?"

However, it doesn't require a comma. I think it's correct either way.

Comma before connector is shady business

Why exactly are you being like that?

What is it you are even asking if that was all you wanted?

I didn't mean to be rude or sarcastic. Sorry if I came across that way. Also, for what it's worth I didn't see your post until afterward.

My writing has been stagnant for a long time. Maybe I'm a little less mechanical and clunky than I was as an undergrad, but otherwise it looks the same.

Due to work I've been reviewing the conventions of grammar and good writing. The first chapter in the first reference book involves freshening up on the use of commas, colons, semicolons, dashes, parenthetical vs restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, etc.

One of the first changes I'd like to do is revise my long-term story project along these guidelines, based on the material I learned in Chapter 1 (giving me added incentive to learn this for work, killing two birds with one stone). But the very second sentence raised a question comma-wise that prompted this thread.

If it was intended as a continuous  proclamation, then on would have been an appropriate inclusion.

So the comma is best, otherwise we would have "flared with passion bearing witness of one accord".

As it is, we know that our beings flared with passion.

And we also know why our beings flared with passion.

Unrelated to topic but a grammar joke I heard.  When a grammar Nazis get upset I let them lay their head on my shoulder and I say "There, their, they're its not so bad"