Sentence Structure and Punctuation

I was asked last week about the following three sentences, taken from this article in the Guardian:

It could have been "coddies", "chengguan", "slumdog" or even "fundoo". "Jai Ho!" would have been fun. Even "noob" wouldn't have been that bad.

The question was why this needs to be three sentences it's all about the same thing. Why isn't it just one sentence like so.

It could have been "coddies", "chengguan", "slumdog" or even "fundoo", "Jai Ho!" would have been fun, even "noob" wouldn't have been that bad.

My answer, which probably wasn't clear enough, was that we need to start new sentences because we have new subjects and new verbs. By "subject" I'm referring to grammar, not content. So in these three sentences, the subjects are IT (the one millionth word in English), "JAI HO!" and "NOOB". The verb phrases for each subject are "COULD HAVE BEEN", "WOULD HAVE BEEN", and "WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN". Notice that each subject is different and each verb phrase is different (even though one is simply negative).

This, to me, is an important point when thinking about sentences and punctuation. If you have a new subject and / or a new verb, you need to either do something clever with grammar (to form a sentence that is no longer simple) or start a new sentence. This handout encourages you to think about this with regards to three paragraphs taken from an article written by a sociologist. I will talk you through the steps...

First, read the three paragraphs, and circle every verb you find. Then go back and find a subject for each of your verbs. Underline or draw a box around your subject. You can compare your ideas with the handout, on which I have marked verbs and subjects with circles and rectangles respectively. Now look at the relationship between all your subjects and verbs and punctuation. You should find that before each new subject and verb there is either a full-stop, or a grammatical construction used for creating complex sentences. If you find any exceptions to this, let me know...

By the way, it would of course be a good idea to look at your own writing like this sometimes. What do you find before each new subject / verb that you use? What SHOULD be there?

You can compare your ideas with mine...in the following text I have