We know society exhibits moral outrage over serial killings, as well it should.
But why the widespread apathy over the death throes of the serial comma?
Fight the good fight. Become a Serial Comma Commando today!
The serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma or the Harvard comma, is the comma found in this construction:
Hurray for the red, white, and blue.
Believers of the use of this construction (like me) insist on that comma after the word white.
My particular reasons are straightforward: consistency and lack of ambiguity.
At least I thought so until I checked out the entry for topic at Wikipedia. I must say, the entry is exhaustive and entertaining.
It gives cogent arguments both for and against.
I used to be a newspaper copy editor. Nearly all newspapers (at least in American and Canada) do not use the serial comma. The New York Times and The Washington Post, excellent newspapers, do not employ that comma after the word white in the example above. Nearly all book publishers used to use it. The New Yorker magazine still uses it.
I reject the argument (made by some, including Lynne Truss of the popular book Eats, Shoots & Leaves) that this style decision is variable depending on context and circumstances. (Oh, of course, you can find an exception to any rule. So, yes, all such decisions are potentially variable. I'm not talking about that. Oliver Wendell Holmes said something like you have to know the rules before you know how to break them. I'm talking about the rule here, not the exception[s].)
I say adhere to the rule, or not, but do so consistently.
It is troubling in recent years to find myself reading a novel and to encounter style usage all over the place on this.
Sloppy.
Most of you say this is all silly and does not matter.
I'll close with the wonderful example from The Chicago Manual of Style (which, naturally, supports the view of the serial comma embraced by The Laughorist):
According to the erudite and entertaining folks at the University of Chicago Press (check out their FAQ section), not using the serial comma can put you in this pickle with this hypothetical book dedication:
"With gratitude to my parents, Mother Teresa and the pope."
Laugh. Or....
Else.
21 comments:
I, for one, love the comma. I use it inappropriately.
Death to the serial comma! About as annoying as the British insistence on pluralizing pronouns and verbs attached to organizations.
i'm with you
and for the record
Turabian 4th edition (admittedly dated) sits out in the bathroom
for daily perusal
a
I was taught in school to use the serial comma. I use commas all the time, sometimes inappropriately, sometimes not. Interesting post today. I had no idea that people got so upset over the serial comma!
Hmmm, tend not to use it unless it clarifies the sense, as in the pope parenting shocker above.
Oh, and I have to put Monicker straight; in the UK, all organisations are treated as singular,not plural, nouns.
Lynne Truss is deeply irritating - I refuse to be lectured on grammar and punctuation by a woman who starts sentences with conjunctions.
Puss
I adore the serial comma. I think it's right up there with the semi-colon.
wow - got your nickers in a bunch over a smaal almost immaterial punctuation mark...geeze
thanks for the link to the chicago manual of style!
I love commas to a fault. They pepper my writing in all kinds of ways. Many of them are incorect. I try to fix it but no one ever taught me properly and by the time I had teachers who cared they assumed I knew it. I should read some elemnts of style.
azgoddess, you are a barbarian. This is serious business.
My eighth-grade English teacher, Dr. Charles Homero Lurns, taught us that the serial comma was not optional. And he knew everything.
I just switch back and forth between both uses--sometimes a comma there and sometimes not. But I am a serial over-hyphenator so you can't take anything I say seriously.
Mostly, I'm ambivalent toward punctuation.
The omission of the serial comma has always bugged me. A trivial saving of effort is achieved at a significant cost in clarity. In letters, e-mail, and manuscripts, I fearlessly employ the Oxford comma.
The serial comma is unnecessary. The last two items in a series are already being separated by the word "and". Being unnecessary, it is an affectation, which makes it irritating.
As with any rule, if it results in confusion, then break the rule. This is true of the Mother Theresa example above. Use your goddamn head.
As with any rule, if it results in confusion, then break the rule. This is true of the Mother Theresa example above. Use your goddamn head.
Absolutely agree. If an ambiguity is introduced, recast the sentence. In this case, the correct form would be "With gratitude to my parents, who are Mother Teresa and the pope."
My view on commas is use them when one would pause in speaking. That goes for using or not using the serial comma.
I understand the need for consistency, but sometimes, for the sake cadence and impact, you have to make a judgment call.
I'm lucky enough to work at a magazine that lets me make such calls as an assistant editor, and doesn't rigidly adhere to any rules.
It either works in context or it doesn't. Personally, I don't think it should be an issue of whether you "love" or "hate" the serial comma, or any other piece of punctuation. Seems to me like a bit of histrionic blogger shorthand, as you would expect. "I love lamp," anyone?
When I'm proofreading, I tell people to be consistent. The Oxford comma should be used throughout the text or not at all. There is an exception, of course, for the occasional mandatory Oxford comma, where one of the items in the list itself contains the word and.
Brian says, as a lawyer I see documents that are ambiguous because of the absence of the serial comma. One recent document named the parties to it as "Adam, Becky and Charles (as Trustees), David and Emily." Who were the trustees? Were there two or three?
good post
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I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
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