I recall some while ago that there was a general consensus among some fellow bloggers that weekend posts were less read than weekday ones. On that basis I shall do my Oxford Comma post today. Frances wrote a post entitled The Essential Colon recently. Frances likes colons and semi-colons. So do I. Flippantly I commented "Let's eat Grandma. Let's eat, Grandma. Punctuation can save lives. I
love colons and semi-colons. I use the Oxford [I actually said 'Cambridge comma' silly billy that I am], though, so
perhaps, to some, I'm not a purist." Actually my brother CJ (aka Scriptor Senex wrote a piece on the Oxford Comma entitled, with his usual pithy directness 'The Oxford Comma' in August last year.
To be honest I don't have any strong views on the Oxford Comma (and as I get older on fewer and fewer other things either). However, whilst I may not use it when there is no particular need for it I do use it when I feel that there is.
The Oxford Comma' is an optional comma before the word 'and' at the end of a list: I like coffee, chocolate, and budgerigars. Actually I'm not that fond of budgerigars but I thought it might make you sit up and take a bit more notice. I probably wouldn't use a comma between 'chocolate' and 'and' in that sentence.
However if I were to write I like coffee and chocolate, bread and butter, and cheese and wine. Then I would always use a comma between between the penultimate pairing and the 'and' before the last pairing. That is an Oxford Comma.
Does anyone really care? I would hazard a guess that if you were to ask all the children under 15 that you know very few, if any, of them would have the slightest idea how to use a colon or a semi-colon and that 99.99(rec)% of the English speaking population wouldn't know what an Oxford Comma is.
I have to face things though: I even split infinitives and end sentences with prepositions sometimes these days. I don't put commas in addresses on envelopes. And I sometimes start sentences with prepositions. All is lost. Woe is me.
However if I were to write I like coffee and chocolate, bread and butter, and cheese and wine. Then I would always use a comma between between the penultimate pairing and the 'and' before the last pairing. That is an Oxford Comma.
Does anyone really care? I would hazard a guess that if you were to ask all the children under 15 that you know very few, if any, of them would have the slightest idea how to use a colon or a semi-colon and that 99.99(rec)% of the English speaking population wouldn't know what an Oxford Comma is.
I have to face things though: I even split infinitives and end sentences with prepositions sometimes these days. I don't put commas in addresses on envelopes. And I sometimes start sentences with prepositions. All is lost. Woe is me.
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It's nice to find somebody who has more than a cursory knowledge of grammar.They had pretty well stopped teaching grammar when I retired. I's sad but I think we will see grammar taught again. I'd never heard of an Oxford comma.
ReplyDeleteLike you, Red, I was brought up in the days when grammar was taught at an early age and enforced thereafter.
DeleteWe recently had to add an Oxford comma into our work department but before that I had never heard of it...
ReplyDeleteBut then I struggle with fewer and less usage too...
Meh
When I mark student assignments I am grateful to be able to read them. Spelling and punctuation seem optional!
Fiona I had a colleague 40 years ago who was exceptionally well qualified and went on to great things in industry. He argued that grammar and punctuation were irrelevant provided that you made yourself understood. The whole point, to my mind, was that grammar and punctuation were an essential means to that end. One of the beauties of old acts of Parliament in the UK was their clarity of language (no commas were used). I recently had a query over a point in my insurance policy. It turned out that no one in the company who was designated to deal with it could interpret the clause (which was ambiguous) because of poor punctuation. They eventually sent me a letter accepting that, whatever it said, they would hold me covered anyway.
DeleteI'm an Oxford comma person. I tend to always include it to ensure that my writing can't be misunderstood. Mind you as Red said I wasn't taught much grammar at school so this was something I picked up from examples well before I knew it had a specific name.
ReplyDeleteMark you are one more for the Clarity Camp.
DeleteI'm with Mark. Use it, but never knew its name.
ReplyDeleteI learnt something the other day from a publisher's blog I follow ('Quote Unquote'): There is now only one space used after a full stop. I'm having to unlearn my two spaces. He said the first thing he often has to do is go through manuscripts and delete all the extra spaces. What a job! Saves pages I expect.
Changing from two spaces to one after a full stop was something I found fairly easy to get used to, although I was also taught to use two initially. Mind you most of the text I write now is either part of a HTML page or a LaTeX document and in both cases any sequence of white space is collapsed to a single space (by default) before being laid out on the screen or page, so hitting the spacebar twice is a waste of energy!
DeleteI'm glad Katherine that I'm not having anything published so I can continue with my two spaces after a full stop. I'm sure that Mark could write a programme that would save the publisher the trouble and which would remove the redundant space automatically.
Delete$string =~ s/\s+/ /;
DeleteGosh Mark. Impressive in it's simplicity. Well there you are Katherine you could make a friend for life with your publisher. Actually it's all HTML to me (I can't spell gobbledegook).
Deletetechnically this replaces all sequences of one or more whitespace characters (the \s is a shortcut for space, tab, line feed, and carriage return) with a single space. I suppose you could use s/ / /; to do just two normal spaces, and you could get clever about making sure that those spaces were at the beginning of a sentence, but then the whole thing becomes less elegant looking!
Deleteand of course, the HTML rendering of the second example has collapsed the two spaces between the first and second / into one, so you can't even see what I was talking about!
DeletePunctuation changes like language itself. Apparently it is ok to use S apostrophe S now for possessives ~ The Smiths's budgerigar. I still don't like it myself. And I read that local authorities are removing punctuation from street names to make them technology friendly for map, street directory and Sat Nav software. I get to teach the difference between a colon and semi colon in my programming classes, because a lot of scripting languages now use semi colon as a command terminator. But I will refer to it as a 'wink' too in SMS emoticon language so the kids know what I am talking about in the first instance. Language in all its forms is a beautiful thing isn't it?
ReplyDeleteUgh, s's looks horrible! I'm never entirely sure when I do need an apostrophe but even I wouldn't add one there. The worst case I've seen of dropping the ' was in the name of the bookshop chain Waterstone's which is now just Waterstones. While the shop was initially named after the founder Tim Waterstone I'm not sure exactly what the name means now.
DeleteCarol it is not acceptable, Smiths' donkey is.
DeleteCarol it's actually quite hard to say Smiths's. It does beg the question whether, if the apostrophe is omitted, it become Smithss and, if so, why? A semi-colon is a 'wink'. I have learned something new today.
DeleteAlthough I am not good at elaborating on grammar rules in any of the languages I speak, I do know when punctuation and grammar are used at their best, making a piece of text much easier and more pleasant to read than if those rules are ignored. Sometimes I very nearly despair of how often people who SHOULD know better don't use correct grammar and/or punctuation. I am of the opinion that it costs very little effort and no extra energy to write properly, so why waste time on writing with errors?
ReplyDeleteMeike you have, with your usual impeccable use of grammar and logic, hit the nail fairly and squarely on the head with your last sentence.
DeleteMeike, you are so right! Your comment made me smile. I agree with you totally! :)
DeleteI was always taught that it was wrong to use a comma there. They didn't tell me it was called an Oxford comma though!
ReplyDeleteI have taken to posting at weekends as it suits me better, and to be honest, haven't noticed much reduction in comments. But, just as an experiment, I could take off my last post and put it on tomorrow (if I remember).
Jenny I think that your followers tend to comment over quite a few days as a matter of course anyway and you always have far more comments than almost anyone else I follow in Blogland anyway. The irony of this post is that I think, despite it being posted at the weekend, it will probably turn out to have more comments than almost any other post I have written. It may even have more individuals commenting than any other post.
DeleteJust the other day I was thinking that my use of English has deteriorated somewhat, and I do quite a bit of second guessing these days when I'm writing. I know it's as a result of being immersed in the American language system as well, but I love the Queen's English very much.
ReplyDeleteNo "Krazy Kat" for me.
Have fun with your commas, whatever kind they may be.
Thanks Virginia. I admit that my grammar and punctuation are not what they should be if I was a purist as taught. However language is a dynamic thing and usage alters. After all if one compares language at the time of Shakespeare and now the differences are large. In Shakespeare's day there was no such thing as gerunds ending in 'ing'.
DeleteI'm not sure I ever knew the term 'Oxford comma'. (I think I must have missed that post of Scriptor's back then.) In Swedish I think I was taught way back in school not to use comma before "and" - unless it adds clarity. (I'd probably use it in your budgerigar sentence...)
ReplyDeleteMonica, I sent Graham a beauty of mis- punctuation. Something to do with a horse and an uncle. I hope he saved it, not the Uncle Graham but the uncle. See language is wonderful a but clears up all misunderstandings.
DeleteThe point is, though, Monica that you were taught about these things. It might take a long time to find the horse and uncle, Adrian. Not: It might take a long time to find the horse and uncle Adrian (presumably they went off together somewhere). A quick cursory search amazed me by the number of times 'horse' appears in emails I receive.
DeleteGraham, forty years ago at nautical college I was given 'Usage and Abusage'. I write and just scatter punctuation pretty well at random. I read through my drivel......and if it doesn't scan then......pop in a few of these....
ReplyDeleteI'll look for a copy of Usage and Abusage. And: will try to 'suss' (sic) the job. Is one allowed to be 'sic' on your own writing?????> I apologise for the greater than sign I forgot I wasn't finishing a line of HTML code.
Why do the Spanish use an upside down ? before a question?
Spherical trigonometry is easier than pedantic grammer...Whoops Grammar.
PS. this writing things down is fraught with danger.
DeletePPS.Not getting a hits at the weekend. I post crap on a Friday and on a Sunday. I'm a bit creepy cos I says Have a good weekend or week. This works as a topic because no bugger knows what you are on about but the buggers think they should. Here you have lots of recognition and lots of folk not realising why they are recognising,
DeleteI still have Eric Partridge's Usage and Abusage Adrian. I also have many other books on grammar and its usage. I've even read a few of them.
DeleteI do use the Oxford comma - but, I also use dashes an awful lot! I would not receive a passing mark in English class these days.
ReplyDeleteRETA@ http://evenhaazer.blogspot.com
Leslie I'm not really enamoured of people who, in effect anonymously, use Blogland to advertise (albeit that you are advertising religion) and do not enter into the spirit of Blogland. You do not, I notice, allow comments on your blog.
ReplyDeleteHave a couple of friends who foam at the mouth about stuff like this. One is a proofreader for a local paper, and things like "for who" instead of "for whom" give Beth fits. The other friend lives in San Francisco, and has taken on the San Francisco Chronicle for their mis-use of various words, phrases -- and punctuation. Most of the time, I let these things pass, being too lazy to take on another crusade. And I am going to make a New Year's resolution to try to be less sarcastic about the George Bush, John Boehner, and the other US Republicans, even when so much of what they say and do simply BEGS for satirizing! That resolution is going to be a hard one to keep, I'm afraid. xoxox
ReplyDeleteI can perfectly understand why bad grammar makes your friends mad. I have my own favourite annoyance, but unlike the written word, which if I close my eyes I can ignore, this one is a public safety announcement. In fact it annoys me so much I once blogged about it.
DeleteAll of which is apropos of nothing, anyway! :) xoxo
ReplyDeleteAnd here, if you haven't seen it yet, is a perfect example of why you need the Oxford Comma.
ReplyDeleteAs a retired primary school teacher who hammered away at punctuation all her teaching life, always emphasising the fact that it created meaning out of words ..... To keep it simple I taught "If you pause as you speak it then put a comma." I've always gone with the simple rule of no comma before "and " but often felt one was needed. Never heard of the Oxford Comma before but awfully glad I have now . Thanks !
ReplyDelete