Serial (Comma) Celebrity

Who would think a remark or two about the serial comma would elicit so much comma, comma commotion (sounds like the chorus of a Del Shannon or Boy George song)?

It turns out my post last week on this topic ventured headlong into one of the more contentious battlegrounds of the cultured wars. (Notice, I didn't say "grammar wars"; it really has to do with style and whether you adhere to a particular style, or solipsistically and sloppily ignore it. That was one of my key points.)

I installed a web counter for the first time last week, more out of curiosity than vanity (liar!). I discovered that James Wolcott of Vanity Fair and Emily Gordon of The New Yorker Between the Lines, also known Emdashes, made passing references to my serial comma post. Yikes! Well, Ms. Gordon did more than that. She said, "The continued existence of people like this is literally what makes me go on living."

Gulp.

You're welcome, Emily.

[Disclaimer: Neither The Laughorist, nor any of his dependents, codependents, or heirs, or accomplices, have or has [wasn't sure; didn't want to research it, ask David Grambs] ever knowingly met or spoken or before her post corresponded with said Emily Gordon; nor has any remuneration, be it financial, erotic, laudatory, literary, or otherwise, op. cit., loc. cit, oh shit, been offered to or given to said Ms. Gordon or her cohorts in exchange for or in any relation to comments on the serial comma, amen, ipso facto, ad nauseam, inter alia , solidus interruptus period full stop]

Speaking of existence, contined or otherwise, what if I were to declaim about the Kierkegaardian comma? Would I be flooded by posts from Denmark? I hereby proclaim the existential existence of the Kierkegaard, or Kierkegaardian, comma. The Kierkegaard comma has to do with the riddle of whether you use a comma or not, and whether you feel guilty either with the comma or without it. Either/Or. That says it all: An existential dilemma facing each of us every day, on some level or another.

Either I put in the comma, or I don't.

Either I get up, or I don't.

Either I live, or I do not.

Either the tragedy in Iraq gets better, or we impeach Bush.


Laugh. Or....

Else.

p.s. I think we should tell the maker of Alpha-Bits to put some commas in their cereal. Y'all with me?

p.p.s. You commenters who nastily said "use your goddamn head" last time around betrayed your own ignorance and infelicitous inattention to detail by misspelling the name of the famous recently deceased nun. Who could take you seriously? No one.