comma sense

The billboard, for local baseball, declared:

AFFORDABLE, FAMILY, FUN.

Whoa! I may've been speeding on the intrastate as I spied the sign, but I nevertheless feel my recollection is accurate.

Why those commas, copywriter dude or dudette?

I recognize that some folks believe punctuation is wedded to sound. It is. To a point. Punctuation choices (e.g., employing or not employing commas) certainly can be influenced by desires related to cadence and rhythm. Subjective considerations along those lines might turn out to be important, especially in poetry or in a speech.

However.

Punctuation also conforms to rules of structure and logic. In the example above, logic is defied as to why commas are employed. In fact, the commas nearly make me laugh.

Granted, one could argue that copywriters readily use periods for dramatic effect, to slow the reader down. As in: AFFORDABLE. FAMILY. FUN. That might be mighty fine except in this case the lack of parallelism is jarring. We have different parts of speech. It throws the train off the tracks.

Commas matter.

And no commas matter, too. 

#punctuationmatters

The day after Mother's Day, as I was driving, I spotted a sign outside a church. The sign declared:

MOTHERS ARE GODS

ANGELS ON EARTH

Being a sometime editor, I quickly perceived what I thought was an error of diction and wanted to rejigger the movable letters to say:

MOTHERS ARE GODDESSES

thinking, "Wow, that's a pretty progressive church, going all New Age on us with gods or goddesses." And then I read the next line and realized the misperception that the missing apostrophe in "GODS" had wrought in one reader. See, punctuation matters. In heaven and on earth.

Incidentally, theologically speaking, I don't get all Thomas Kinkade-warm-and-gauzy over that angel thing. Back in the Sixties, in high school, Father Giuliani used to say we've got to be human before anything else. We're humans. No disrespect to angelic entities, wherever they may be, if anywhere, but we humans need not aspire to that ontological leap. (Is it even a leap, Kierkegaardian or otherwise? Now don't go ruffling your gossamers.)

comma sense

Who says punctuation doesn't matter?

Don't get me wrong. Although I posture as a purist, I recognize, mostly through texting, that we humans who speak English tend to figure things out, despite missing apostrophes, periods, commas, whatnot. And I thought I heard in my linguistics course decades ago that simplification in language is actually a mark of sophistication. (I would have to research that now; comments invited to affirm, explain, or invalidate that assertion.)

On the black-pepper grinder and shaker, the instructions declare:

TO ADJUST GRIND

followed by directions for counterclockwise hand turnings for coarser or finer results.

Imagine adding a comma:

TO ADJUST, GRIND

as in:

to adjust to your quotidian challenges, grind through them, yielding either coarser or finer results, peppery or not, seasoning your day, discovering its flavor and zest despite any blandness or bitterness.

Oaf-killter

Things matter.

Small things can matter a lot.

Staying at a hotel (courteously unnamed here) this weekend, I noticed the push-button console for the elevator in the lobby was askew, slightly off-kilter. In a bathroom off the lobby, a faucet was installed not-quite-parallel to the line of the sink (its top rim). An amber light attached to a hair dryer flickered in the dark of night. The television set in our room had a mysterious wire with what looked like a computer chip dangling from its front, more obviously than a dangling participle.

None of these matters proved fatal, not even severely anxiety-producing.

But they were unsettling to the careful (or even almost-careless) observer.

And the same applies to language.

A few mistakes here and there, a few verbal tics, and the reader gets nervous, distrustful.

As an editor, I frequently tell clients that readers start to distrust your data if you make some seemingly trivial blunders. The readers start to think, "They got that wrong; what else is wrong?"

An example: I received an impassioned plea for church stewardship pledges with "alter" [initial cap] instead of "altar" at the heart of the request. The writer's sacrifice of accuracy was like Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son Isaac. Not quite, you rightly say. After all, there's an infinite gap between sacrifice and near-sacrifice. (And didn't Mark Twain say the difference between the right word and the wrong word is like the difference between "lightning" and "lightning bug"?)

Of course, many don't care about such minutiae.

But, to paraphrase Grace Slick's refrain in the 1960's, "Go ask Isaac."

Serial Comma Society

Hats, gloves, bras, shirts, sandals, and socks off to The Serial Comma Society on Facebook.

We are not alone!

Carry on!

As you were.

March on, Serial Comma Commandos.

(Yes, yes, we struggled over whether to hyphenate between serial and comma. We sided with poetic license, available at the city clerk's office, for a nominative fee.)

Recruiting Serial Comma Commandos

Uncle Serial Comma Wants You!



















Recruiting now at your local Laughorist.

cold enough for ya?

oh were not the coldest in syracuse its colder in places like thief river falls minnesota but its so cold the keyboard crinkles and sticks and freezes and punctuates poorly missing a beat on commas semicolons apostrophes colons and gets caught on enter
enter
enter
enter
enter sometimes called return
return
return
return
return return even cold enough to have cities villages towns hamlets mandate coats and hats and gloves for public statues cold enough to make one wonder hey do we need all those commas serial commas or otherwise or question marks or exclamation marks hyphens all that redaction kind of thing question mark and as for its with the apostrophe versus its without it no one except an elite few seems to care anyway giving a cold shoulder to redaction rules and regulations regs some call em cold enough to cause people cold to sleep closer snuggling even when smoldering mad at each other cold nough to reconsider hot heat of temper and intemperate tantrums tending to tantric tangos now were really frozen all the rulesslippingintoonelandlockedwordlockedfrozenriverofletters
that cold
period

CARTE BLANCHE

In 1989 or 1990 I was working on a government proposal. Huge. Many volumes. Military stuff. I came upon a blank page that was not quite blank. "This page intentionally left blank." These words emblazoned the otherwise white 8.5 by 11 page. In brackets. Centered. Is my memory accurate? Is the phrasing correct? At first I laughed, thinking, how stupid! I still don't get it, not entirely. Was it a placeholder for information to be filled in later? Was it blank for security reasons, and if so when would it become nonblank? But, of course, in a swirl of circular Dadaism, the page could never be blank as long as it had words on it, albeit bracketed words. How powerful, then, are brackets! They are cogent enough to suspend reality, as it were, or is, or ever shall be. They are Editors Supreme. Would that we could employ (do not expect to see me use the loathsome word "utilize"!) brackets orally, the way people bend their raised index and middle fingers, genuflecting the air, to indicate either irony or a literal quotation. Of course, that's not oral at all. I meant visually vis-a-vis speech, didn't I? Perhaps we could start a new movement (literally qua literalness) of angling the thumb and index finger of each hand rectangularly, raised parallel to each other, like a referee signaling a touchdown, bracketlike, to alert the world to the advent of one's bracketed speech, as if to say, "I'm not really saying this" or "I cannot believe what I'm going to say" or "I'm saying this but it doesn't count" or [This mind intentionally left blank].

Surreal Serial Solecisms

You people want evidence as to how things start falling apart (like a clock going limp) without proper punctuation? Well, take this sentence, in today's Post-Standard of Syracuse, New York, in an article it carried by one Frazier Moore, of The Associated Press:

Fifty years ago this month, viewers saw [Mike] Wallace interview Israeli statesman Abba Eban, influential theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, actress-singer Lillian Roth (whose autobiography, "I'll Cry Tomorrow," told of her battles with alcoholism and surrealist painter Salvador Dali.

Problem 1: No closing parenthesis. We're still waiting to end that parenthetical aside. It's sort of the way I talk. Surreal.

Problem 2: Without the serial comma after "alcoholism," we must assume that Ms. Roth did battle with Mr. Dali. (Maybe she did; maybe all those limp clocks ticked her off. Note, I was very careful to avoid typos in this post.)

The big mystery: was the parens boner by AP? Or by the local paper? (We already know AP would never have put that serial comma in there, no way no how. Well, that's what you get. Confusion.)

Young / And / Lost

On the cobblestoned sidewalk at the corner of graffiti-saturated Berlin's Boxhagener Strasse and Warschauer Strasse, stenciled or painted in white are these words separated by virgules, or slashes (punctuation marks meant to join, not separate, according to purists):

YOUNG  /  AND  /  LOST

I saw these words in the midst of doing laundry (very confusing machines!), while also attempting to engage in some entrepreneurial commerce. Small world.

They gave me pause.

Do these words describe a band?

An anarchic political manifesto?

Satiric irony?

A cry for help?

A simple declaration of fact (for individuals, or en masse)?

A Good Friday sermon (pithy and pointed)?

Concrete poetry (hahahahahaha)?

In any event, I mused, what makes the young think they have a lock on being lost?

I'm myself am wandering, sometimes feeling lost.

But, to borrow a phrase I recall from the Book of Common Prayer:

May I find -- and be found.

You too.

Hooray! Serial Commas for Kids!

I am delighted, thrilled, and proud to share with you the exact contents of a vitally important and courageous e-mail I received yesterday from someone named Bill Gram-Reefer (Bill, if that is your real name, I won't comment further on your appellation without securing legal counsel first).

Anyway, here's the wonderful, excellent, and necessary news I am excited about exclusively passing on to my loyal, deserving, and intelligent readers (yeah, I might've used a semicolon in the headline that follows):


Punctuation Man Breaks with Associated Press, Endorses Serial Comma

In support of the National Education Association's "Read Across America" program on March 3, the nation's leading authority on helping school children, teachers, and parents learn proper punctuation skills declares that the "serial comma" should be taught, used, and accepted universally.

Pinole, CA (PRWEB) February 28, 2008 -- Punctuation Man, a leading authority on punctuation and teaching punctuation to elementary school children, today announced his decision to fully support the use of the serial comma.

Shunned by the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook, the serial comma is still widely accepted by educators, grammarians, and literary circles, including Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, and the Chicago Manual of Style. The announcement coincides with the National Education Association's (NEA) "Read Across America" child literacy program, to be held nationwide on Monday, March 3.

There is no small debate about the serial comma (also known as the Oxford Comma). It is a comma used before a coordinating conjunction (such as "and") before the last item in a series of three or more. For example: The flag is red, white, and blue.

Enter Jeff Rubin -- aka Punctuation Man -- a former newspaper reporter turned newsletter publisher, public speaker, and founder of National Punctuation Day, which will celebrate its fifth anniversary on September 24. Jeff and his wife, Norma, travel the nation to teach children the basics of punctuation with Punctuation Playtime, a live assembly program that is also offered to teachers, schools, and school districts as an instructional DVD.

"I am inundated with questions from people across the United States about punctuation, and many involve the serial comma," says Rubin. "Speaking as Punctuation Man, I hope to resolve one of punctuation's nagging issues and provide clarity. I recommend the use of the serial comma because it helps make clear the meaning of a sentence."

For example, according to AP style, how many horses in the following sentence were in the race -- three or four?

"The horses thundered toward the finish: black and gold, red and white, blue and teal and yellow."

When punctuated using a serial comma, the meaning is clear. Four horses raced neck and neck: black and gold, red and white, blue and teal, and yellow.

Here's another example from a book dedication: "To my parents, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul II."

"Punctuation counts," says Rubin. "A misplaced comma can alter the meaning of a sentence.

"Style should never get in the way of clear communication. The proper use of the serial comma should be taught, used, and accepted universally."

About Punctuation Playtime:
While performing Punctuation Playtime, based in Pinole, CA, Jeff Rubin and Norma Martinez-Rubin have energized thousands of children on a subject routinely regarded as boring and duller than dirt. Jeff, a veteran newspaper reporter and newsletter publisher, founded National Punctuation Day (September 24) in 2004 to draw attention to the importance of proper punctuation. He is a member of the National Speakers Association and speaks frequently on writing, marketing, and integrity for small-business owners.

For more information about Punctuation Playtime, visit http://www.punctuationplaytime.com. For more information about how your school or company can participate in National Punctuation Day, please visit http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com.

DEMO VIDEO
http://www.PunctuationPlaytime.com

EDITOR CONTACT
Jeff Rubin
Punctuation Playtime
877-588-1212
jeff @ PunctuationPlaytime.com

Bill Gram-Reefer
WORLDVIEW
925-459-8537
reefer @ worldviewpr.com

###


Thanks, guys. Love it!

Pawlie Kokonuts

Punctuation Nomination

Given the architecture and visual plumage of the colon [:], why is the semicolon [;] so named?

Shouldn't the period [.] be the true semicolon [;], since it is half as many dots as the colon [:]?

Ergo, I hereby nominate the nomenclature of the comma [,] as the paraquasidemicolon.

(The disturbing thing is that I thought of this in my sleep, or semidemiquasisleep, last night.)

Labels Majora and Labels Minora

In looking over Blogger.com's options to "customize" my blog, I noticed an option labeled, Labels.

Presto! I clicked a few times and soon surveyed one of the longest lists in Christendom (second only to the list of remembered resentments of a particular ethnic group [hint: my wife's, whose ancestral lands we visited without resentments before or after last October], or possibly second only to the list of things to sort and dispose of at home and office).

Sheesh! Talk about a laundry list! Or talk about airing your laundry in public!!

Or exclaim about about excessive exclamation points!!

I dare say my list redefines the word eclectic.

Or obsessive. Or some other word.

Septuple Hyphenated Hiatus of Hankering

On Friday morning, there were by my count 23 riders on the bus, a fivefold increase from the previous morning's commute. What do we owe the increased ridership to: Gas prices? Global warming? Payday? Report-to-caseworker day?

One of the new riders, a New Rider of the Purple Sage, was Marilyn Monroe, wearing a wise and lavender version of that fabulous famous dress that blows upward erotically from the sidewalk grate in a memorable scene from the 1955 film "The Seven Year Itch." (Speaking of which, I'm really itching to tell you that the movie's title yearns, cries out for, a hyphen between seven and year. And upon reflection, isn't the hyphen itself an intimate mark of punctuation, a subtle conjoiner, a conjugal connector? And upon even further reflection, is there really anything to that "seven-year itch" theory of wanderlust? Or is it more like "seven-minute itch"? The Laughorist wander-wonders, hyphenically.)

Speaking of wonder-wanderings, I almost plaintively asked Marilyn for a lurid lapdance, but demurred.

What do you think I am, some kind of purple necro-nut? Besides, it's a public bus, not a bus with the adjective preceding bus missing that fourth letter, a typo I have paranoically dreaded in my years as an editor.

Further besides, my libido flags at morningtime, at less than half-mast, the mourning dove of love all but dormant.

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.