comma roundtable

punctuation is my life :)

(if only i'd done a chapter on emoticons. mind, it was 1996.)

thank heaven for appositives!

Woo-hoo! I love the serial comma. That's what I was taught, and fortunately it's been the style at both editing jobs I've had. My understanding is that dropping the comma was a journalistic invention and had no idea until recently that so many people were taught in school not to use the serial comma. To me, serial is the default.

inevitable, i, think.

The British play really fast and loose with their commas. I don't know what they're doing over there. Particularly with double-descriptions. Fine to say "my first book, Autobiography I, sold very well." Brits have weird habits of writing "my first book, Autobiography I sold very well." (That's grammatical but means something different.) Fine to say "I turned the corner and ran into the rock critic David Raposa." Brits have weird habits of writing "I turned the corner and ran into the rock critic, David Raposa." (That's grammatical but implies that David Raposa is the only rock critic available to run into.)

"I turned the corner and ran into David Raposa, the rock critic."

My David Raposa example is not as functional as I want it to be. Better one, as seen on liner notes everywhere: They follow that song with searing rocker, 'I Want to Pogo,' electrifying their fans.

Something that's "traditionally-written" is written in a manner that is traditional; something that's "traditionally written" might be quite avant-garde, but have a strong, traditional sense of being "written."

Thank you for your correct semicolon usage.

how do people feel about however? my english teacher in high school told us it was ONLY to be used after a semicolon, before a comma. never anywhere else. ever. i see it all the time as the first word in a sentence. is this allowed?

Mozart (and other composers) titled symphonies as such: Symphonie Nr. 40 g-moll (or, on an english score, Symphony No. 40 in G minor). does the economist's style guide go against hundreds of years of musical tradition?

Do not put a comma before and at the end of a sequence of items unless one of the items includes another and. Thus The doctor suggested an aspirin, half a grapefruit and a cup of broth. But he ordered scrambled eggs, whisky and soda, and a selection from the trolley.

I.e., "Fuck the serial comma. Oh wait, sometimes it's important for sense. Okay, just use it then, or something." I wonder what they do when the list-item with "and" doesn't appear at the end of the list?

Re: Mozart I think they just picked a very poor example, since, yeah, there are already naming conventions there. The advice is perfectly sound, though -- cf "Smith's fifth campaign, for governor" vs "Smith's fifth campaign for governor."

Really I just want more debate on punctuation on this thread.

In that case, can I take this opportunity to moan about people confusing en dashes and em dashes please?

the problem with punctuation is that there are very few hard-and-fast rules: most of the time a publication's approach is defined by one or two arbiters of style. like, hem-hem, me.

yet nabisco's comments above sadden me greatly - because they're true. the black-and-white evidence in every single british newspaper suggests that a sub-editor who can punctuate is now a tragic rarity.

Comma and period inside the quotation mark or outside?

My favorite song is "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep," which tells the tragic tale of a birdchick who's lost her mommy.

vs.

My favorite song is "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep", which tells the tragic tale of a birdchick who's lost her mommy.

Putting the comma outside makes way more sense, since the comma is not part of the title, but for some reason American style is to put it inside.

This site has a discussion of the issues.

And Frank, I think one could argue that the quotation marks aren't part of the title either. Logically, the comma "belongs" more to the word Cheep than it does to the closing quotation mark.

This site has a discussion of the issues.

And Frank, I think one could argue that the quotation marks aren't part of the title either. Logically, the comma "belongs" more to the word Cheep than it does to the closing quotation mark.

Frank Frank Frank -- did you just list your dash preferences backwards? "More sentences with dashes" means lots and lots of m-dashes, which are wonderful and should clearly not be abolished. (I dunno about always spacing them out, though; fonts with really long m-dashes look terrific closed up, particularly in columns and in tightly-printed books.) Surely the one you want to kill is the kinda-esoteric n-dash? (Though that one, for its very few uses, is still quite elegant: it sets off ranges, like 8:30-9:30, in a way a hyphen can't handle, and it's massively clever when it gets used to denote compound adjective phrases, like Pulitzer Prize-winning. I'm sure there's some great example in the CMoS where the meaning of one of those varies depending on whether you use a hyphen or an n-dash.)

em dash = —
en dash = –

I have just finished reading Sentimental Education, which I enjoyed

-- with the comma outside the italic string. So it would be logically consistent to write --

I have just finished reading "The Gift of the Magi", which I enjoyed.

(By the way, I'm completely with you on the serial comma thing. If we don't use them consistently, we risk making all lists ambiguous.)

I'm sure there's some great example in the CMoS where the meaning of one of those varies depending on whether you use a hyphen or an n-dash

really? this is a new one to me, and i am keen to know more. if you can find it, i'd very much like to see it.

as for punctuation inside/outside quotes: it goes inside if the quote is a complete sentence, otherwise outside. simple, effective and logical.

what else? oh yeh: alt-0151 be fucked. buy one macintosh.

"Oh, but since that one is ambiguous, we can always include the final serial comma in that one; but we don't need it elsewhere. Like so: Tom and Jerry, and Simon and Garfunkel, and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice to thread!"

Like, that removes the ambiguity if the established procedure is to not use the final comma? And try this one:

Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, Tom and Jerry and Simon and Garfunkel to thread!

We should all care. Besides, Wittgenstein left them outside.

The usual such example is "New York—London flight."

Grimly, I'm kinda too lazy to get up and go get the CMoS, but you can probably imagine why the n-dash rule is needed. If I say "grand prize-winning," there might be some question as to whether I'm talking about two ideas ("grand" and "prize-winning") or one (winner of the grand prize). The n-dash rule would make it "grand prize–winning" or "World War Two–era" or what have you, to clarify that the connection applies to a multiple-word term.

That looks like an em to me.

ps americans be hating on inconsistency and irrationality!

Hyphen indicates that the penis is gigantic and woman-pleasing, as was (I believe) Dan's intent.

An en-dash would indicate that the penis pleased giantesses.

yes, absolutely. it makes perfect sense and i am adopting it right now. god bless america.

"We didn't want to lay him a cookie" Flaherty said "but unfortunately we did and he hit it out"

unfortunately the meaning of it is beyond me....

What about a comma between "did" and "and"? I don't think it's absolutely necessary, since "he hit it out" is such a short phrase and very much logically connected to the preceding clause, but it might be warranted, on account of "he" being a new subject.

http://www.metro.ru/stations/zamoskvoretskaya/mayakovskaya/mayak.jpg

this pic doesnt show mayakovskaya station very well.

heres my personal favourite, kropotkinskaya:

http://www.metro.ru/stations/sokolnicheskaya/kropotkinskaya/71.jpg

This is 100% AP-style correct, or so I've been told.

Gorgeous(,) ambrose!

Some people still deprecate this kind of use of "hopefully", "unfortunately" etc. altogether, don't they?

Perhaps the comma after "did" isn't strictly necessary, because it was unfortunate both that they laid him a cookie and also that he hit it out. ?

The comma after "unfortunately," however, is apparently non-negotiable.

I see why there could be a comma after "did" but I don't like commaing most conjunctions unless it is in the name of good clauses

the comma after "unfortunately", without one before "unfortunately", seems very strange

Also I don't know why there's talk of commas for clauses with new subjects, not around serial-commaphobes who would happily write "The dog barked, the bird sang and the cat mewed."

sorry?

yep. strange - bordering on completely wrong.

otherwise it shall lie forgotten, as it probably should.

RJG, JMC said the last potential comma "might be warranted, on account of 'he' being a new subject." Hence my joke about new-subject serial-commas.

in what way could 'he' be a new subject?

christ. i used to be able to draw little tree-diagrams to show how sentences work. now i struggle to find the correct words.

Cf "I hadn't planned to give the dog a bone, but I did, and the dog chewed on it."

"When asked to specify for “Other”, suggestions included more area or place names (although they are present, but more obvious when the whole map is looked at), bus stops, and similar to the frequency of buses, the first and last times that buses run"

i dont like it, but the commas coincide with the way i would say it, and although i guess rewriting is probably the only way to salvage it, i ifnd it frustrating how averse english speakers are to subordinate clauses. Russian goes off into millions of them, and written latin did too (although i cant say the same for spoken obv)

crossposts

RJG, the general rule is to put commas to split up clauses that are complete subject-verb constructions. For example: "Richard headed out to the record store after work, and I put on a kettle in the hopes that he'd want some tea when he got in." "Nitsuh decided not to join us at the bar the other night, but we ended up having a splendid time, anyway."

This can be circumvented if one of the clauses is exceptionally short, as in N.'s "rubber/glue" example, and especially if the second clause logically follows the first, as a cause-effect relationship: "I smacked him and he fell down." But these situations are rare, and I am cautious when I decide to omit commas in sentences with two or more subjects.

how about "Suggestions for the “Other” category included bus stops, area- and place- names (although they are already present on the map), and the first and last running times of buses."

think a serial comma is necessary there tho

but I don't have a job

ARGH. COMMA INSIDE THE QUOTES.

When asked to specify other information that might be included, suggestions included: more area or place names (although they are present, but more obvious when the whole map is looked at); bus stops; and similar to the frequency of buses, the first and last times that buses run."

I still don't know what 'bus stops' might mean there, for instance. No one uses "place-names" so drop those hyphens. A colon is the thing for instroducing a list where the items are phrases, and a semi-colon what separates the terms in the list. My first comma separates an independent clause from its succeeding dependent clause; the second is what jaymc cites; I omit one before 'similar' as unnecessary, but it is justifiable; and the last is necessary for the words to be at all comprehensible.

"Richard headed out to the record store and I put on a kettle."

actually,

"Richard headed out, to the record store, and I put on a kettle."

i guess the only thing i will say to generalise about commas, and punctuation, is that you have two elements that guide you: communication and style. communication is key, but the way the sentence looks on the page, and the way you feel that you would communicate that sentence should also influence your decisions.

(my pet theory)

seriously i cant wait until the two different standards diverge far enough apart for people to stop having expectations of similarity. one day, people will stop saying things like, "americans spell colour wrong and say weird things like 'write me'! why dont they use english properly!?!?". i hope.

Yes, Ambrose, must have the concrete brutalism of the St. P.

http://www.aha.ru/~pangeamv/pribalt.jpg

pribaltiskaya hotel, st petersburg. in this area, right on the gulf of finland, there are just loads of terrifying tower blocks, right by the sea, bitterly cold salty winds howling through, and in winter with the sea all iced up....it looks mental. (not this hotel, although that is harsh too)

oh maybe yr talking about the st p metro. but thats not concrete brutalism, just a dowdy version of moscow. so marble tiles, but sort of cracked and badly constructed. also v cramped platforms, staircases etc.

Tracer H attacked some guy, and said he needed 'anger management'!

Then Nabisco launched some very long, learned posts on commas. It was strange.

I don't really like the US ways with this kind of thing. I am with Alba.

I liked it when RJG said, 'RJG English' - a funny phrase!

I didn't think you were insincere, Hand - just that choler seemed perhaps uncharacteristic. Like RJG I wish you well. I still think the thread is queer.

*i also hate apostrophes and the spaces between words**
**and umbrellas too

i would rather we brits gave up on redundant spellings such as "colour", accept that language evolves, and adopt american english wholesale. i'd even be prepared to accept that pesky pre-"and" serial comma.

given that american english is a) marginally simpler/more logical, and b) more widely used than british english, i think it's a good compromise.

Jennings was a reporter, too. He had done Vietnam, and he was prominent for bringing Kosovo into American homes. On the morning of September 11, 2001, he set out on approximately 60 hours, unbroken, on the air. And in those hours, he spoke well, clearly, and with great feeling.

http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/film/features/article307039.ece

He commented on her appearance as she bent over (can she really have responded with 'What sort of a compliment is "What an arse!"?'?); then walked away.

Commas. I love the short curly fuckers. They are the serifs of sentences!

You know like "I often wonder if there exist on threads like these hidden in-jokes -or even whole secret conversations- detectable only by grammar wizards."

(all commas omitted from this post to minimize usage humiliation)

I often wonder if there exist hidden in-jokes — or even whole secret conversations — on threads like these, detectable only by grammar wizards.

1) I often wonder if there exist hidden in-jokes, or even whole secret conversations, on threads like these, detectable only by grammar wizards.

2) I often wonder if there exist hidden in-jokes — or even whole secret conversations — on threads like these, detectable only by grammar wizards.

3) I often wonder if there exist hidden in-jokes (or even whole secret conversations) on threads like these, detectable only by grammar wizards.

The first can be hardest to spot and pin down, since commas have so many other functions, and the same is somewhat true of dashes (whatever kind you use, but a space either side of each is a good idea), whereas with brackets it's unmistakeable, because that's the only think brackets are for. If you read them, the pausing is different, and the degree of separation, of hierarchy, of the interjection as against the main flow increases from 1-3. I don't think there are rules for which to use, but those are the aspects to think about.

Sterling, there is no way of saving that sentence - you have to recast it.

Tracer, it occurs to me that there is a John Barth short story, in Lost In The Funhouse, where we eventually get to seven levels of nested quotation. I don't have a copy to hand, but there is a moment when he gets to something absurd like:
"'"'"'"Yes."'"'"'"
"'"'"'Yes.'"'"'"
"'"'"Yes."'"'"
"'"'Yes.'"'"
"'"Yes."'"
"'Yes.'"
"Yes."

Enormously enjoyable, if you don't find it completely fucking intolerable.

I didn't actually need brackets (in that example) but that's the kind of thing I can't do. (Is it even more difficult when you put a question in brackets?)

When not-using the serial comma, lists appear as such: "X, Y and Z." For instance, we might write: "Contact us by phone, by e-mail or by post."

There is, however, another construction which takes the same form. Consider: "Contact us online, day or night." Or: "We carry cakes, muffins and cookies, fat and non-fat."

In each of those cases, we can infer from content and context the difference between the former -- "X, Y and Z" -- and the latter -- "X, (Y and Z)."

But then you find yourself reading legal copy, or an explanation of complex investment options, or an electronics repair manual, and ... well, you wind up where I did today, looking at something foreign enough to leave you unable to sort out which of the two is actually meant.

Take that, absent serial comma!

"You can purchase time by the minute, day or night."

Does this mean I can purchase time in three increments (by the minute, by the day, or by the night)? Or does it mean that I can purchase time in only one increment (by the minute), but I can make that purchase during any time of the day (or night)?

separate colliding lists of potentially non-unitary items are a bad thing in themselves sentence-wise style-wise, as is anything which is potentially unclear on a cursory skim

(Like I was saying above, I run into a lot of these where "common sense" is no help, because they are about financial-planning techniques or semi-complicated legal texts. IRA-related tax law is particularly resistant to "common sense" interpretation.)

however i have an insanely um subtle um "intuitive" inner house rule for when the comma goes inside or outside in quotations (if complete sentence quoted, inside; if sentence clearly incomplete ie by grammar, does it feel like the sentence ended where the quotemark comes, in which case inside, unless all that's quoted is a single clause or mere phrase, in which case outside)

or

Bob, Carol, Ted, Alice, Tom, Jerry, Simon and Garfunkel to thread!

(or

Alice, Bob, Carol, Garfunkel, Jerry, Simon, Ted and Tom to thread! if u didn;t want to make a deal of who you called first)

"Hall and Oates, Loggins and Messina and Simon and Garfunkel all come to mind" is a bit inelegant but hardly ambiguous -- what's the diff if they come to mind in their team pairs or individually?

re hyphens, n- and m-dashes, this depends on fonts somewhat but:

i. - = hyphen (used to yoke workds together)
ii. – = n-dash (a stop, used w.spaces either side)
iii. — = m-dash (a stop, used w/o spaces)

ii. and iii. are identical in use but any given house style uses one or tother

"We didn't want to lay him a cookie," Flaherty said," but we did, unfortunately, and he hit it out."

It's less important that the quote is mildly distorted for word order (who is going to care?) than that AP's insane and hideous rule be allowed to intrude into my life as a sub editor EVER EVER EVER

i generally change this kind of thing to

She praised the "education Hawaiian parents ensure their middle children get."

I don't know why exactly, I think I just feel the first puts the "the" into the limelight a bit too much, when it's a word you ought to be moving past w/o pause...

he doesn't give the explanation or justification...

Mark, it becomes rather ambiguous if you don't know enough about music to know there is a group called "Loggins and Messina" and another one called "Simon and Garfunkel," as opposed to a group called "Loggins and Messina and Simon" and a solo artist called "Garfunkel!" This is why I'm skeptical when people say you can figure things out "in context" -- often they seem to be assuming that the reader already knows much of what he's being told. Whereas the purpose of clarity should be to make things readable even to people who don't, necessarily.

If you insert Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Earth, Wind, and Fire into your no-serial list it becomes very, very complicated.

what you're sayin is that the punctuation shd do way more work than it should NEED to do -- or ever could do!

(ie in addition to tellin the lex who you happen to be thinkin of, savin him a trip to his ROUGH GUIDE to WHITE SOUL DUOS)

if yr worried that the duo nature is going to be unclear to a potential read and that this will matter, you phrase it thus and so (mutatis mutandis):

"Three white soul duos come to mind: L&M, H&O, S&G"

(he shd have called himself Garfunkel!)

yeah, no prob!

Young stay where you are plz

But I agree that people are often too hesitant to reorganize sentences to avoid ambiguities -- lots of times I'll mark up something ungrammatical and get a response like "but otherwise how will I mean this," and the answer is "you will write the sentence over in a whole different sequence."

as for yr. cookie quote thing, you do realize you changed the quoted text, right?

also, kogan's notes to his subeditors to thread.

"Hall and Oates, Loggins and Messina & Simon and Garfunkel all come to mind" haha

"Three bands I would really recommend to you are Hall and Oates [pause] Loggins and Messina [pause] and Simon and Garfunkel."

Partly training, but I think those list commas will always read to me like orderly division of the list into component parts.

Actually: what does no-serial style do with semicoloned lists? E.g.,

We will win him over using three techniques: by bringing him presents of various sorts, including baked goods, novelty ties, and desk ornaments; by complimenting his intelligence, taste, and personal hygiene; and by threatening to beat him about the head, face, and arms if he does not comply with our wishes.

I think that clears everything up.

pausewise: "wynken blynken and nod" reflects speech as well-badly as "wynken, blynken and nod"

they are there -- absent some other-shaped specialist stop we don't have to hand -- to say: Oi! Reader! LIST!

Someone says this to me, I am not thinking "I wonder how that is punctuated."

(I'm not helping much, am I?)

as they want people to have their attention drawn to them, i say BRING IT ON: viz

rather than "The University of [wherever it was] offers courses in... "

always write

"The University of [wherever it was] -- which by the way is arsey enough to insist that the "the", from far being part of the cultural commons of the language we all speak and write and own collectively belongs especially and particularly to THEM and must ALWAYS BE CAPITALISED in hommage to the RESEMBLANCE OF THEIR ENTIRE MARKETING STRATEGISTS TO CARTOON MONKEY PENISES -- offers courses in.... "

"We didn't want to lay him a cookie," Flaherty said," but on Thursday we did, and he hit it out." = correct

"We didn't want to lay him a cookie," Flaherty said," but despite all my rage we did, and he hit it out." = correct

"We didn't want to lay him a cookie," Flaherty said," but, despite all my rage, we did, and he hit it out." = also correct (you could also comma off "on Thursday" but this would be more of a concession to how the speaker said it -- ie w.pauses -- and would in fact consciously be emphasisin those pauses (which is not the case in the "despite all my my rage" example)...

AP are just flat wrong abt this tracer -- if i were stuck there workin for em i wd seriously re-order any quote to avoid such rubbishy rulings

if you want the misfortune to for certain-sure apply to everything then put it right at the end: "We didn't want to lay him a cookie," Flaherty said," but we did, and he hit it out, unfortunately." or indeed "We didn't want to lay him a cookie," Flaherty said," but we did and he hit it out, unfortunately."

(haha or REPEAT it): "We didn't want to lay him a cookie," Flaherty said," but unfortunately we did, unfortunately, and unfortunately he hit it out, unfortunately."

To my mind this takes too much time checking its watch and making sure it's not stepping in any puddles. It's like the speaker isn't in the moment.

"I wanted to catch the pig, but as I quickly realized, he was too greasy."

More exciting! Yet incorrect. This is what I said was "AP style," yet[,] you've convinced me it's not, actually, and my QA (editor) was -- shocka -- full of it.

or

"I wanted to catch the pig, but quickly realized he was too greasy."

or

"I wanted to catch the pig, but he was too greasy, as I quickly realized."

or (fastest of all)

"I wanted to catch the pig but he was too greasy, as I quickly realized."

(which leads me to suggest that you can also drop the comma after "pig" in i. and ii.: to suggest the general greasy slippery speed of the whole event)

For just $2.50 a week, you'll have access to The New York Times Magazine, daily feature sections like Thursday Styles and Science Times and much more.

Is Science Times a "daily feature section?" Or does it belong to a final list item, "Science Times and much more?" Common sense tells us it's the former, but a serial comma could verify that much more efficiently.

vs

For just $2.50 a week, you'll have access to The New York Times Magazine, daily feature sections like Thursday Styles and Science Times and Much More.

Seriously, if you want to test common sense, try this:

For just $2.50 a week, you'll have access to The New York Times Magazine, daily feature sections like Thursday Styles and Science Times and Science Quarterly.

Common sense could now indicate either reading.

To be eligible for enrollment, you MUST submit copies of this application to your professor, teaching assistant and advisor or dean.

Print that sentence and you'll spend all day on the phone clarifying it. The beauty of the serial comma is that it allows you, with one little mark, to specify which you mean:

(a) professor, teaching assistant and advisor, or dean
(b) professor, teaching assistant, and advisor or dean

i quote, from the associated press stylebook 2005:

"Put a comma before the concluding conjunction in a series, however, if an integral element of the series requires a conjunction: I had orange juice, toast, and ham and eggs for breakfast.

Use a comma also before the concluding conjunction in a complex series of phrases: The main points to consider are whether the athletes are skillful enough to compete, whether they have the stamina to endure the training, and whether they have the proper mental attitude."

so i don't think this is really a problem, at least if you're following ap style.

meanwhile, if you wanna see real problems with consistency, check out ap's all-over-the-map rules for transliterating foreign names. my favorite is the rule that south korean names be treated like so: Roh Moo-hyun, but north korean names like so: Kim Il Sung. why? i have no idea. i'm assuming that in korean it's all the same. unless kim passed some edict about naming conventions.

Hold on, I understand the concern here over the inept writing, and I think whoever was responsible needs more help and redirection than any kind of serial comma is up to; but how are we not concerned about the statement that one of their DAILY sections is called 'Thursday Styles'? Doesn't that look a bit stupid and erroneous most days of the week?

(ie daily = noun-adj rather than adj-adj)

i do not condone this product or service

Here's a good example of why a no-serial-comma rule fails (from TIME magazine):

He knows everything there is to know about weapons and is a stickler for the byzantine rules of gun ownership--the waiting periods, the background checks, the ATF callbacks and information requests.

That last bit: is it "the ATF callbacks and information requests" (where both callbacks and information requests are from the ATF) or is it "the ATF callbacks, and information requests" (where information requests has nothing to do with the ATF and is the fourth item in the sequence)? I'm assuming it's the former because the latter would require a parallel "the" -- but I would forgive someone for being confused here.

As best I can figure, that example is either incorrect or poorly phrased.

But see:

To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God.

If it's a no-serial-comma example, there should be a "the". If not, the "and" is incorrectly placed. That's my thinking, at least.

Also, I think it's poor style to end a sentence with a "--"-interjection.

He knows everything there is to know about weapons and is a stickler for the byzantine rules of gun ownership--the ATF callbacks and information requests, the waiting periods and the background checks.

I always use "--" only to insert a sentence or a sentence fragment in the midst of another sentence. A simple enumerated list like that ought follow a colon, at least according to the style rules I just made up now.

oh!

To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God.

"And" six times in a row

Advocates of no serial commas are fine with all sorts of confusion and misunderstanding so long as nobody thinks they're descended from Ayn Rand

Most people either don’t recognize or don’t care when they encounter a misspelled word or incorrectly-formed plural. But some people do notice, and there’s a personality type that will spend a lot of time demonstrating their superior English skills online. We’ve studied this for over a year, in many settings, and over and over we find the same thing: the most expensive employees, especially technical people such as programmers, can be provoked by the smallest error to post a comment of their own correcting the error and chastising the original poster. Observing technical staff in one organization we found that just two common errors — it’s instead of its and there instead of their — accounted for six hours of essentially wasted time per month per employee.

http://typicalprogrammer.com/?p=68

http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/serialcomma.html

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/AnArgumentfortheOxfordComma.jpg

lol

hahahaha

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v134/tracerhand/merlehaggardgotaround.jpg

lololol

Personally I think the serial comma is totes important, I don't know why everyone is so hot to modernize and minimize it away. Big fan here.

Yeah, will stan for the serial comma 4eva.

That cutline is killing me, so classic. Is that from Rolling Stone?

i don't know!

I LOVE teaching about the serial comma. It's the highlight of the second 8 weeks imo.

That Haggard thing is great! I always tell my middle-school students that they need to put a comma before the final "and" or "or" in a series, but sometimes I find myself stuck for an example of the ambiguity that's created if you don't. The Haggard is a perfect example.

In Spanish, however, you don't, so when grading papers of students for whom English is a second language mistakes come up often.

(No insult to advocates of gay marriage intended.)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cDjCM9JUOmk/TnXmhcZ8L6I/AAAAAAABJKI/GaF2g8wk1Vg/s1600/OxfordComma.jpg

,,,,, chameleon

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/09/10/oxford_comma_in_band_names_trios_from_peter_paul_and_mary_to_crosby_stills.html

They missed Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, which for the longest time I thought was a quartet rather than a trio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_3QqzI23sE

I've been an editor for 20 years, but the lack of comma before "then" in this supposedly correct sentence looks weird to me:

"He stayed up all night then took a nap the next day."

I would write "He stayed up all night and took a nap the next day" or "He stayed up all night and then took a nap the next day." But it doesn't feel like you can use "then" by itself in that context without punctuation.

i know what CMOS agrees with you, but i guess it would depend on whatever style guidelines you're meant to be working with?

*know that

I'm no great respecter of style guides, but I happily use the serial comma. Where I most disagree with modernity is the traditional use of the comma to indicate a slight pause. his use of commas to mark pauses traces back to a time when reading silently to oneself was uncommon.

I endorse that use and I employ it as often as I think necessary, because I think prose rhythm should be anchored firmly in speech rhythms, as if the reader were speaking my sentences aloud to a listener. I think it aids both comprehension and the pleasure derived when reading text.

This use doesn't suit the writers of style guides because there is no hard and fast rule they can enunciate. Each writer must be their own judge of where a slight pause is apt. It leads to (gasp) non-conformity.

actually sort of agree with that! in my reading the great prose stylists are all somewhat inconsistent in that regard

I endorse that use and I employ it as often as I think necessary, because I think prose rhythm should be anchored firmly in speech rhythms, as if the reader were speaking my sentences aloud to a listener. I think it aids both comprehension and the pleasure derived when reading text.

I agree with this 100%, and read my sentences aloud when they don't seem right. Then I tweak them until they have the flow that is my music. And yeah, sometimes that means a series of pauses, and other times it means letting it go so long that you're out of breath at the end.