Play It Again, Taylor

It was summer 1998; the sun was out, the car windows were rolled down, Dave Matthew’s “Crash into Me” was blasting on KROQ. I was singing along so passionately and shamelessly the guy in the car next to me must have wished he had ear plugs: “Crash into me. Whoa oh oh. Crash into meeeee. Baby...” I didn’t ever want the song to end. And, much to my pleasure, the DJ felt the same way; he did something I had never before experienced: he immediately played it again.

When I was little, my mom, sister and I saw Hairspray (the original one with Ricki Lake and Divine), and we loved it so much that when the movie ended, we simply stayed in our seats and watched the next showing.

And just about every time I get a scoop of ice cream and think I am ready to settle into watching my shows, I get up to get a second serving.

Variety isn’t always the spice of life; sometimes it’s repetition.

We can also experience this phenomenon when we are writing. It doesn’t happen often, but there are times when the word we want to use after another word is the same word. For example:

If I had had more ice cream, I would have gone back for a third serving.

I think that that scene in which Taylor Lautner rips off his shirt should be watched over and over and over again.

It’s fine to occasionally use two of the same words in a row, but do we have to insert a comma between them?

Sometimes.

In the previous examples, we don’t. We only use the comma when we use two successive identical verbs and one of them ends the subject clause and the other begins the verb clause. For example:

The powers that those abs have, have captivated a nation.

The subject of that sentence is:

The powers that those abs have

And the verb is:

have captivated

Here's another example when we need a comma (I'll underline the subject and italicize the verb):

Unfortunately, however old Taylor is, is not old enough to make me not feel like a pedophile.

Note: I apologize for using awkward sentences for my examples. I couldn't think of better ones at the time to illustrate the point, and now I am too lazy to go back to change them.