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Been working on editing the guest bios for the Dragon*Con program book. I shall probably fume myself into an aneurism on this one, but the growing trend toward omitting the last serial comma is really ticking me off*. I want to bash over the head with a bucket of sporks those idiot English teachers who are telling kids that it's okay not to include it! The only style manual/grammar resource where I've ever heard such practice being acceptable is the Associated Press one, which omits them due to space constraints. All American authorities: The Chicago Manual of Style, Elements of Style, The Gregg Reference Manual, Oxford University Press, etc. say to use the serial comma because it reduces ambiguity. So why aren't people using it? Well, at least I'm not the only one who finds this tendency aggravating. Yes, I'm a grammar geek. Ye verily, I have embraced my nerditude. *I'm less peeved by Brit and Aussie writers who do it because their style manuals waffle on it more, and they've got other things to worry about, like whether to put the punctuation on the inside or the outside of the quotation marks. Writing Stuff I got a piece of mail from the excellent folks at Cricket that perked me up, although when I first opened it, I was momentarily confused. The communique inside was addressed, "Dear Pussywillow and Ladybug"--which are not names I recall going by--and there wasn't an explanatory note to aid my comprehension. But after a moment, a few more neurons roused themselves, and I realized "Pussywillow" and "Ladybug" were the names of a couple of the bug characters featured in Cricket. It then dawned on me that they'd printed and sent me an email they'd received from a little girl, Maddy age 11. She loved the April 2006 issue and specifically mentioned my story, "The King of Rabbits and Moon Lake," as one that she enjoyed Fan mail from a young reader! I'm tickled that a little girl was so enthusiastic about reading, and specifically about reading something I wrote, that she took the time to send a letter to the editors. Happy writer me.
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Amen sister. I feel as though I am grading freshman papers again. I actually hate grammar but have always instinctively done it correctly. As a writing tutor, however, I memorized the basic comma rules. And if I can do that so can everyone else. The comma splices! Ye Gods! This evening, I started helping  bevlovesbooks out with them. I'm surprised at how badly written these things are. It's clear that some of these washed up losers don't have a publicist to write this crap for them. I put more thought into my intro on LJ than these morons. Bev's read me some pretty awful ones that list every pathetic thing they've ever done. |
(seen via friendsfriends) I work in an industry (investment banking) where the final serial comma is typically omitted, and it drives me nuts. I do DTP, and frequently have to edit or input lists that ought to include a serial comma, and don't, and are (to my previously-a-copyeditor eye) ambiguous. And yes, in at least three internal style guides I've seen, the comma is explicitly noted as incorrect. (I had a long argument with my boss at my first position in the industry about this; she won, even while acknowledging that the comma does improve clarity, on the twin bases of inertia -- that's how it's always been done here -- and apparent insignificance -- it won't usually matter, anyway. I wish I could speak with her now, with the recent example of a serial comma costing several million dollars. |
On August 13th, 2006 11:37 pm (UTC), (Anonymous) commented: Cute! That's sweet story about your young fan. Got me to smile immediately. Thanks for sharing it. Joel A. |
first to clarify, you are talking about 'apples, bananas *,* and potatoes' right? i was specifically instructed on multiple occasions that the comma before the and does not belong. it's easy enough to add if someone has a problem, but i always thought it looked silly sitting in front of the 'and'. the 'and' is not a member of the series. So your English teacher(s) are among the culprits! Shame on them! Unless you're writing for a newspaper or similar publication, you should always use the serial comma because it reduces ambiguity. For e.g. if you have this sentence: "They had cucumber, bologna, peanut butter and jam and cream cheese sandwiches." Without the serial comma, is it "peanut butter and jam" or "peanut butter and jam and cream cheese"? The serial comma clarifies it: "They had cucumber, bologna, peanut butter and jam, and cream cheese sandwiches." Correct punctuation is important, dammit. |
FWIW, the Oxford comma is part of The Town Drunk's house style. Wikipedia has an article about serial commas. It brings up a good point -- in some cases, the serial comma can work against clarity: Consider "They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid, and a cook." The presence of the last comma creates the possibility that Betty is a maid, reasonably allowing it to be read either as a list of two people or as a list of three people, context aside. Of course, in fiction editing we can always rephrase, but as readers we can never be sure... But if Betty is a maid and a cook, it would read like this: "Betty, a maid and a cook." (This is, of course, assuming everyone uses the serial comma to separate items in a series.) |
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