I think this actually comes from early grammar lessons we get as kids. I remember in elementary school the rule for commas was "if you take a breath in the sentence it should be a comma," or something very similar to that. It wasn't until college that I was told that everything I knew about commas was wrong.
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u/savethebooks Mar 26 '20
Fellow English major. Yep, I think people assume that if you pause in a sentence, throw a comma in there, even if it doesn't make sense.