A random walk through yesterday’s NY Times pulled up the following:
In a story about the Fox v. FCC decision from the Second Circuit, page B1:
“The decision, which many constitutional scholars expect to be appealed to the Supreme Court, stems from a challenge by Fox, CBS and other broadcasters to the FCC’s decision in 2004 . . .”From Nicholas Kristof’s op-ed column, p A27
“Some mix of fear, love, hopelessness and shattered self-esteem keep her from trying to run away. . . . ”From a story in Sports on the All-Star Game, page B14:
“The National League’s motivation might have stemmed from . . . . the folksy, funny and almost fiery pep talk that [Charlie] Manuel gave before the game . . .”
I’ve been noticing, the last year or so, the absence of that serial comma — the one that should precede the final item within the list — with increasing frequency, and it’s pretty clear that the Times Style Guide must consider it optional. It is becoming harder and harder to insist upon its use, given that it is so frequently omitted (even in “good writing”).
That’s unfortunate. I know the arguments for and against the Rule, but I consider one of them dispositive in its favor: use of the serial comma expands the possibilities for communicating nuance of meaning, and is therefore an unmitigated Good Thing. The classic illustration is this:
(a) “The woods are lovely, dark and deep”
versus
(b) “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep”
In the first edition of Frost’s Collected Poems, that line (from “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”) was printed as in (a), but it was corrected in subsequent editions. The point is that the two lines have different meanings — in the first, the woods are lovely; “dark and deep” then becomes a descriptor or illustration of that loveliness. In the second, the woods have three separate characteristics: they’re lovely, they’re dark, and they’re deep. (Was Charlie Manuel’s pep talk folksy, as illustrated by its funniness and fiery-ness? Or was it funny, folksy, and fiery?) If we lose the serial comma rule, we won’t be able to distinguish between the two meanings when we encounter lines with (or without) the comma; it’ll just be random, a matter of whim and fancy, on the order of whether you form the possessive for “James” as James’ or James’s, or whether you do or don’t capitalize prepositions that appear in the middle of titles, incapable of carrying any semantic weight. A shame, if that happens.
Pierre Corneille says:
Mr. Post,
I favor the serial comma for the reason you cite, for its efficacy, and for its intuitiveness. However, the clarity that comes with using a serial comma in contradistinction to not using it only works if all or most readers and writers adhere to it.
July 16, 2010, 9:16 amSmooth, like a Rhapsody says:
My dad, the recently retired English teacher, is with you and would be appalled by the examples.
July 16, 2010, 9:21 amIf one knows what a comma is then one should have no problem with the “put it in” rule.
A comma is a pause. In every instance mentioned above, a natural pause is in order; therefore, the comma should be there.
Curmudeon Geographer says:
My wife has been fighting this battle with her Baby Boom-era father. His view is that the serial comma was thrown out for newspapers years and years ago, that little bit of less ink. Seriously, but I believe it. He was a writer for a newspaper and it is his take it is now okay the way all things can change and become the new norm.
He refuses to use it, she insists on it. I’m stuck in between having no true awareness of comma abuse until my wife points it out.
And most people’s reading is of newspapers so that is what they see in use most often.
July 16, 2010, 9:24 amRhode Island Lawyer says:
I agree with you that in this rendering the words “dark and deep” could be understood as describing “lovely” rather than “woods”. However, if that were the intention, the better way to say it would be like this: “The woods are lovely: dark and deep.”
In any event, I agree that this formulation is less clear in this type of situation; however, it is not a problem in other situations. For example, there is no possible confusion with: “I went to the game with my friends Ilya, David and Dale”. Similarly, your first two examples are not open to confusion either. Therefore, I am open to either construction where misinterpretation is unlikely.
July 16, 2010, 9:27 amBlue says:
I think it will always carry semantic weight because we will always read commas as pauses. Some writers will avail themselves of the tool, others will not (or will be ignorant of it).
What we will lose is the semantic distinction of the absence of the comma.
July 16, 2010, 9:30 amMQuinn says:
Thank you for this post! I advocate strongly for use of the serial comma among my associates. Knowing that several of them review this blog daily, this post is a huge help!
July 16, 2010, 9:31 amSeamus says:
The “serial comma rule” isn’t a true rule at all, but rather a preference. It’s a preference that I share, for all the reasons, but I don’t pretend that omission of the serial comma is “wrong,” given that its use has never been universal, and that many people and institutions (including the United Nations) follow the opposite “rule” by systematically omitting the serial comma.
July 16, 2010, 9:32 amCassandra says:
Would you use a comma in the ubiquitous solecism “The problem is is that ….” to make it “The problem is, is that ….”?
July 16, 2010, 9:32 amtarheel says:
Not sure about NYT style, but AP style says you do not use the serial comma. As I understand it from copy editor sorts, it is a relic of the days when they had to manually set the type to print the paper.
July 16, 2010, 9:33 amWilliam Chester Minor says:
The ship has sailed long ago. I favor the serial comma as well (also known as the Oxford comma), but newspapers haven’t used it for years.
Even legal writers–who are generally very conservative and tend to use a formal style–are mixed about the serial comma.
More signficantly, I doubt many schools even teach students to use it these days.
The bigger question is more interesting. What will happen to grammatical and punctuation styles in the internet era?
P.S. How about a post on the loss of hyphenated words? Good and bad?
July 16, 2010, 9:36 amJoseph Slater says:
This far in and no mention of Vampire Weekend’s “Oxford Comma”?
Anyway, I agree with David Post on this issue.
July 16, 2010, 9:38 amMike says:
I had a technical (engineering) paper submitted for publication and the editor deleted all my serial commas. According to Wikipedia, the AP syle book recommends against the serial comma, which is probably why newspapers (and others with journalism backgrounds) don’t want them.
July 16, 2010, 9:39 amMark Field says:
I completely agree with you, but it’s a lost battle. English teachers today — at least my daughter’s teachers — demand its absence. Heck, William F. Buckley wrote a column on this at least 30 years ago.
July 16, 2010, 9:39 amHouston Lawyer says:
As a young associate drafting securities disclosure documents 25 years ago, I was taught to drop the comma. It is an almost universal practice among securities lawyers.
As is pointed out above, the comma denotes a pause, even subvocally, when you read it. So the extra comma interferes with the flow of the text.
I will use it though if the sentence structure is such that the extra comma helps avoid an ambiguity.
July 16, 2010, 9:40 amBlue says:
Or perhaps:
The woods are lovely–dark and deep.
July 16, 2010, 9:46 amrmd says:
I conceded the serial comma decades ago and it still requires a conscious effort on my part to leave it out. I do that because I was told by supposed authorities (high school English teachers) that I was wrong. B*st*rds. Where do I go to get back my 35 years’ worth of commas?
July 16, 2010, 9:47 amHelen says:
In grade school and secondary school, I was taught specifically NOT to use it. I wasn’t taught that it was optional; it was wrong. (Granted, this was back in the last Ice Age, more or less.)
But I have a tough time reminding myself that it’s okay to use it these days.
July 16, 2010, 9:51 amruuffles says:
Re: high school English
The MLA style, which is widely used in American high schools these days, uses the serial comma.
July 16, 2010, 9:53 amRich says:
The style now is to leave it out. This came up when I wrote my dissertation a couple of years ago, and tends to be enforced by the grammar /spell checker of MS Word.BUT, my adviser the best thing is to use them when they clarify what you means. So in Frost’s poem did he want it to mean the woods are lovely because they dark and deep or did he want three descriptors? So in my case we looked at every place where I had serial comma’s (which is what I was taught may years ago) and made a decision as to what I actually meant.
July 16, 2010, 9:56 amBut that took thought and people are not interested in doing that for the most part.
Mark says:
I think we should at least all agree that the serial comma is an absolute must in contracts. It doesn’t break up the flow of a series to add the comma–you read it in anyway–but it does provide clarity, which as I understand it is what contracts are all about.
July 16, 2010, 9:59 amGary says:
“My name’s Stewart Ransom Miller. I’m a serial comma killer.”
July 16, 2010, 10:00 amAlast says:
Another example:
The exhibit contained asian, black and white images.
July 16, 2010, 10:02 amL says:
My favorite example/argument in favor of the Oxford comma is:
“I would like to thank my parents, God and Ayn Rand.”
July 16, 2010, 10:06 amneurodoc says:
What’s the nuanced significance of those choices?
July 16, 2010, 10:07 amAllan Leedy says:
You’ve mistranscribed an idiom of oral language. The word you’re looking for is “problemiz”.
July 16, 2010, 10:12 amruuffles says:
James’ implies it belongs to multiple people surnamed Jame.
July 16, 2010, 10:13 amtbaugh says:
I’m with you (and nice example, L Says). I think you see this particularly going by the wayside in journalism (both newspapers and magazines).
July 16, 2010, 10:19 amGramarye says:
I agree that the battle seems to be going against serial comma partisans, but I’ll fight this one to the last drop of digital ink. The world is not going to run out of ink or bytes if you add the final serial comma, and as mentioned earlier, it’s a natural pause (in addition to generally clarifying meaning).
July 16, 2010, 10:23 amSteve G says:
Though there is the counter-example:
“I would like to thank my mother, Ayn Rand, and God.”
I’ve never been able to figure out who this hypothetical person is that would thank both Ayn Rand and God…
July 16, 2010, 10:24 amPubliusFL says:
It’s also due to the fact that newspapers tend to use very narrow columns of text, so an extra comma is more likely to bump a word down to the next line. That can add up to a lot of column-inches. One more reason why the practice in newspapers is influenced by the specific context of newspapers, and not a good guide to whether serial commas should be used in other contexts.
July 16, 2010, 10:25 amRob Berra says:
Normally, I wouldn’t do this here, but this is a thread on punctuation…
The popular tendency to over/misuse apostrophes and quotation marks gripes me enormously more than the serial comma issue. When I see a sign at the grocery store that says “FRESH” I’m disinclined to buy it because it’s clear that the item is not fresh, they’re just calling it “fresh.” Similarly, when I see “comma’s” I have to wonder what word we’re missing. Is it the comma’s feelings, car, spouse, SSN, or what?
July 16, 2010, 10:34 amL says:
Glenn Beck? Ron Paul?
Not everyone who admires an atheist has to be an atheist, especially when they are admiring the atheist for something other than her atheism.
July 16, 2010, 10:36 amRalph Hitchens says:
There are some issues on which this progressive liberal is proudly conservative. Thanks for fighting the good fight.
July 16, 2010, 10:38 amRandy says:
“When I see a sign at the grocery store that says “FRESH” I’m disinclined to buy it because it’s clear that the item is not fresh, they’re just calling it “fresh.”
Same here! I always chuckle that what they are saying is that when the bread first came out of the oven, it was freshly baked. And it nerves me that they say fresh, and not freshly.
Regarding commas, I think there are plenty of instances where adding the comma doesn’t add clarity, as in ” I went to the concert with Tom, Dick and Harry” it isn’t needed, even though would be appropriate.
Houston Lawyer: “As is pointed out above, the comma denotes a pause, even subvocally, when you read it. So the extra comma interferes with the flow of the text. ”
When I read securities disclosures, “flow” is really the last thing I think the writers are concerned about.
July 16, 2010, 10:48 amanonymous says:
Alast: The exhibit contained asian, black and white images.
I agree with those who favor dropping the serial comma, except in instances of ambiguity. Your example is clearly a listing of three races, not two, else it would have been worded, “The exhibit contained asian and black and white [mixed race] images.”
A tasty counter serial example might be, “Alice, I’ll have some Frosted Wheaties, Cocoa Puffs and Cap’n Crunch.” Using excessive commas can get a bit gloppy, choppy and sloppy for non-technical communication. Alice doesn’t have to sense a comma to know that there’s no Puff Cap’n. A reader would expect an extra conjunction were there such a product.
July 16, 2010, 10:57 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
I agree entirely with the post (and with “the Post”!).
I am not sure that the serial comma’s disappearance is a new thing, exactly. It might be just a recrudescence of an old thing.
I worked for a time, in the mid-90s, on the publication of a book by a professor of mine. I didn’t do the editorial work, but I did retype his (literally) typewritten text into a word-processing program, and then enter the copy editor’s alterations as they reached us.
My (fairly elderly) professor loathed the “Oxford comma” for some reason. His copy editor, on the other hand, insisted on it; I must have inserted several hundred serial commas before we were done with the book. The one place where the author positively put his foot down was the actual title of the book, which was of the form “[X], [Y] and the [Z].” There was to be no comma after [Y].
July 16, 2010, 11:03 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
anonymous,
I agree with those who favor dropping the serial comma, except in instances of ambiguity. Your example is clearly a listing of three races, not two, else it would have been worded, “The exhibit contained asian and black and white [mixed race] images.”
I don’t think that’s the ambiguity Alast had in mind. “Black and white images” suggests black and white photography to most people.
July 16, 2010, 11:06 ambyomtov says:
I was taught that it was optional where the series was obviously a series, such as, “I chose Aaron, Mays, and Mantle as my outfielders.” Where there is any ambiguity, though, it should be used or omitted to clarify meaning, much as David says.
I think it should be used even when it is clear that you are referring to a series, because it’s an easy way to make sure. What is obvious to me may not be obvious to others (as many threads here demonstrate), and I think it sounds better.
July 16, 2010, 11:08 amPatHMV says:
I recently worked on drafting a lengthy (25 page) set of Bylaws for a corporation. The other attorney working on them does not believe in the serial comma. I do. He is older and very well-respected in our local corporate law world.
But I was in charge of actually making the changes to the various revised drafts and providing the final version, so the document included the serial comma in all the lists I could identify in my final proof read.
July 16, 2010, 11:09 amanonymous says:
Michelle, that’s what I thought was meant, too, until the listing of asian with bl & wh didn’t make much sense to me.
Still, the point holds that another “and” would be needed if it intended to be a listing of two items with one compound. Right?
[ok, nevermind, just read your point with both eyes open. I got you, but still it would be awkward syntax. Let's agree that that sentence should not be written for people like me to misinterpret the wrong and not the correct way:)]
July 16, 2010, 11:12 amPJ says:
I have been a user of the serial comma for decades, ever since I heard the possibly- (or probably-) apocryphal story of a will that left everything to “Tom, Dick and Harry,” with the result that Tom got half and Dick and Harry split the other half.
July 16, 2010, 11:12 amRb1971 says:
That’s what I came to write.
But also that as a senior transactional attorney I see a lot of juniors – especially from overseas – who do not use this and were trained that it was wrong, even in legal drafting. I am a descriptivist about most language rules but this one seems important since it increases clarity.
July 16, 2010, 11:16 amguest890 says:
As with the majority of commenters, I generally favor the use of the serial comma, but don’t treat it as an absolute rule if it would cause confusion. (I certainly would use it if dropping it would cause confusion, as in the Frost line.)
And here’s a blog for Rob Berra and Randy: http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/
July 16, 2010, 11:17 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
anonymous,
Still, the point holds that another “and” would be needed if it intended to be a listing of two items with one compound. Right?
Well, no. Another “and” wouldn’t differentiate my reading from yours. I’d say that a competent writer would reverse the order of items and use hyphens —
black-and-white Asian images
— for my reading, while rewriting the sentence entirely for yours. But it’s difficult to say, given that we don’t know from the example whether these are images of Asians (&c.) or images crafted by Asians (&c.). It makes a major difference in how I’d phrase it, at least.
July 16, 2010, 11:21 amToby says:
Randy: Regarding commas, I think there are plenty of instances where adding the comma doesn’t add clarity, as in ” I went to the concert with Tom, Dick and Harry” it isn’t needed, even though would be appropriate.
Then sometimes you have to write “I went to the concert with Tom, Dick and Harry, Joe, and Bill and Ted” Using that comma every time allows one to expand the nuances and precision of communication. As noted above, be sure to include them in contracts.
It seems that across the board, English is being stripped of precision by new approaches. That is the source of *my* resistance to EVs “descriptive” approaches.
I often write tough technical documents for public consumption for people from a variety of backgrounds, meaning that I cannot assume that they think alike, talk alike, or use the same vocabulary. I am given other people’s work to review before publication. I find that if I merely go through and add back in these commas, others who can’t quite put a finger on what I did comment back that it is much clearer now.
If I want to make the document really pop, though, I add the commas, un-split the infinitives, and use E! (e-prime) as the primary language. Sometimes in a hundred page, group edited, policy document with multiple opinions, I apply e-prime to my favorite section, and leave the others as their authors wrote them. When others read the document, they remember the e! sections later…
July 16, 2010, 11:23 amanonymous says:
Shouldn’t “asian black and white images” have no comma to signify a genre of asian images, whether B&W photography or B&W painted canvases, for example? And whether of or by.
July 16, 2010, 11:27 amBama 1L says:
I used to write and edit in AP style, from which the serial comma is long gone. I think it is really a typographical rule: you don’t want to spend column inches on marks of punctuation. For that reason, I don’t consider newspapers competent witnesses as to punctuation.
July 16, 2010, 11:31 amAnderson says:
The basic problem is that people are largely stupid and uneducated.
There is, literally, no valid argument *against* the serial comma, whereas it often clarifies meaning.
July 16, 2010, 11:40 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Bama 1L,
You’re quite right: I just checked my AP Stylebook (2001 ed.), and the serial comma is verboten. (The Chicago Manual of Style, OTOH, “strongly recommends” it.) It hadn’t occurred to me that space considerations entered into it, but of course you must be right. D’oh!
July 16, 2010, 11:42 amMark Horning says:
As a Scientist, I hold precision to be very important, and shall defend the Oxford comma to my dying transistor.
July 16, 2010, 11:43 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
anonymous,
Shouldn’t “asian black and white images” have no comma to signify a genre of asian images, whether B&W photography or B&W painted canvases, for example? And whether of or by.
You’ll notice that when I rephrased it, I used no comma either. But I hyphenated “black-and-white” to make clear that it was a compound, and put it before “Asian” to make that doubly clear. I’m afraid that some people, reading your comma-less version, would assume that a comma (or two) had been left out somewhere, and try to re-insert it (or them) mentally.
July 16, 2010, 11:46 amfwb says:
To me, the issue is proper language use and common language use. Common language use is for the ignorant!
The failure of people to learn proper grammar and to use that knowledge results in miscommunication. A lack of knowledge about the proper use keeps people from understanding documents such as the Constitution.
Stupid is as stupid does! – Forrest G.
July 16, 2010, 11:47 amSmooth, like a Rhapsody says:
Joseph:
July 16, 2010, 11:49 amHad I known it was called an “Oxford Comma”, I would have mentioned Vampire Weekend–a great band. Good catch.
commatose by now says:
Use that serial comma in law and other technical writing and to clarify when context doesn’t. But its rigid use in every listing is puritannical and unsexy, stylistically, rather like buttoning blouses too high because the buttons are there to be used and you never know when a showing of collarbone might inflame.
July 16, 2010, 11:53 amDYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Losing the Serial Comma Battle says:
[...] David Post documents the continuing degeneration of our language skills. I know the arguments for and against the Rule, but I consider one of them dispositive in its favor: use of the serial comma expands the possibilities for communicating nuance of meaning, and is therefore an unmitigated Good Thing. [...]
July 16, 2010, 12:01 pmKarl Lembke says:
In a business writing class I took a few years ago, the teacher mentioned a legal case where the serial comma was critically important, and made a significant difference in how an estate was divided up.
What is the difference between:
and
Apparently, in the opinion of the court, it was the difference between all three heirs receiving $333,333 and Alice receiving $500K and the other two splitting the remaining $500K. It seems the judge decided the terms of the will called for dividing the estate equally among some number of boxes, and each comma marked where one box ended and the next began.
July 16, 2010, 12:02 pmFlooey says:
Mr. Post,
I agree with your analysis and conclusion as to the use of the serial comma but was struck by your added remarks on the possessive of, for example and especially, James. I recently sent copies of Clive James’s Cultural Amnesia to two friends who had argued for the no-final-s, i.e. James’, formulation for such possessives, and I pointed to James’s reference in his book to “Marion Davies’s clitoris” as proof of his learned take on the matter.
July 16, 2010, 12:03 pmMarcus says:
I am pro-serial comma and applaud you for your efforts in that arena. Next, I would appreciate you tackling the increasing use of “loose” in place of “lose” (this is no longer limited to comments sections) and the use of “Acorn” in place of the acronym “ACORN.” Thank you.
July 16, 2010, 12:10 pmdirc says:
The last comma in the sequence was dropped in response to the nation-wide shortage of commas that developed in the 1970s. English teachers predicted that without conservation efforts, we would reach “Peak Comma” in 1984.
The crisis has been delayed, but not averted. Congress will soon take up legislation that will limit the numbers of commas that may be used in a sentence.
President Obama is already doing his part. He has reduced his use of introductory clauses such as “Let me be clear”, which requires a comma to separate it from the clarity that follows. His comma-intensive slogan “Yes, we can” (one comma for every 8 printed characters!) has been dropped completely.
July 16, 2010, 12:16 pmDave N. says:
I agree. Of course, more loathsome than the missing comma (when needed) is the addition of the comma when unnecessary. Some people apparently confuse adjectives in a series with appositives (or do not understand appositives), leading to such abominations as “Police Chief, Joe Smith personally led the investigation.”
July 16, 2010, 12:18 pmD.R.M. says:
Hmm? It’s just a matter of domain.
The serial comma is best practice for non-journalistic writing, following the Chicago Manual of Style, MLA, APA, USGPO, Fowler’s, Oxford University Press, and Strunk & White.
Omitting the serial comma is best practice for journalistic writing, following the Times (of London), Economist, New York Times, LA Times, AP, and the Canadian Press.
Figure out which domain you’re writing in, and follow the custom as established.
July 16, 2010, 12:25 pmAndrew says:
Karl, PJ
July 16, 2010, 12:26 pmFor all that the inheritance is talked about in writing classes, has anyone ever seen a citation for the court case in which it occurred?
Robert Ayers says:
Sixty comments and no one has mentioned “Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation” yet? It does include a discussion of the “Oxford comma” — and much else.
July 16, 2010, 12:31 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Karl Lembke,
Assuming this to be a real case (which I’m sure it isn’t) one reason for reading
One million dollars, to be divided equally between Alice, Bob and Charlie
as meaning a 50/50 split between “Alice” on the one hand and “Bob and Charlie” on the other might be that if the author had intended a three-way split, s/he would have used “among” rather than “between.” ;-)
But since the phrase is atrociously written were that the meaning intended, I think we can assume that the hypothetical author wouldn’t bother with the among/between distinction any more than with the serial comma. Three-way split it is. Sorry, Alice!
Dave N.,
Obviously, I disagree with you and “commatose by now” about the serial comma (I guess that makes me “puritanical and unsexy”). I agree with you very much, though, about those damned extra commas. They’re nearly as obnoxious as the swarming extra apostrophes.
July 16, 2010, 12:32 pmD.R.M. says:
“Eats, Shoots & Leaves” is a pile of dung.
July 16, 2010, 12:34 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Robert Ayers,
I nearly mentioned Lynne Truss just a minute ago, when I wrote about “swarming extra apostrophes.” That’s what she calls the “greengrocer’s apostrophe,” and it’s getting out of control, to the point where I see it routinely in comment threads even here. (I’m not even talking about “it’s/its,” where the situation is positively hopeless.)
July 16, 2010, 12:34 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
D.R.M.,
Are bloggers journalists? (I gather that blog commenters aren’t, in your view, given the two serial commas in your own comment.)
July 16, 2010, 12:40 pmAlast says:
Not necessarily…. remember that everyone is not perfect in English, and clearly conveying the thought is a goal that falls on many shoulders. I always include the comma because some of my readers expect it, and it never makes things worse or less clear.
July 16, 2010, 12:50 pmKarl Lembke says:
Andrew:
Fair point. Unfortunatley, no citation has ever been listed, to the best of my recollection. And by now, it’s going to be very difficult to track the teacher down and ask her.
Michelle Dulak Thomson:
Well, I’m paraphrasing what I recall from the class, which in turn is presenting what the teacher recalls from whatever source she relied on, which may or may not trace back to a real case, so calling my phrasing “approximate” is high flattery.
For all I know, if it is a real case, maybe “Bob” and/or “Charlie” managed to irritate the judge in the case, and he chose his interpretation accordingly.
Maybe we should consult a priestess of Ceres on the issue.
July 16, 2010, 12:53 pmD.R.M. says:
Since it’s a gray area and fairly informal writing, on blogs I simply follow the habits that match those of the places I’m (occasionally) formally published. No point in censoring my usual habits.
Since it’s a gray area and fairly informal writing, I have no objection to someone else using journalistic style on blogs, either in main posts or comments.
July 16, 2010, 12:57 pmJim says:
This is a very good example of the diffenrnece between langugae and script. All the examples given above can only be ambiguous in written from. In actual language different disambiguating intonational patterns are obligatory, so the problem doesn’t arise in the forst place.
In general punctuation is the colostomy bag of grammar. It’s for languages which either lack overt syntactic markers adequate to deal with these problems – lack of interrogative or other discourse particles – or whose writing systems fail to accurate reflect the inotnational system of the language.
And English treachers are worse than non-authoritative on these questions. They do literature, not grammar, and writers know language like fish know water – not half as well as chemists do.
July 16, 2010, 1:13 pmrmd says:
Perhaps the writer of the phrase “Asian black and white images” meant to describe images by or of whites of unspecified geographic origin and blacks of Asian origin? OK, I’m just trying to mess with you now. I guess the point is that it is almost impossible to not be misunderstood by someone, somewhere and that a writer should try to be cognizant of his assumptions and try very hard not to ascribe those same assumptions to his readers.
But that would violate basic English usage. If there were two “boxes” and only two people, you wouldn’t write “…between Alice, Bob.” It seems like basic lawyer-work to express the two-box, three-people idea clearly, if not tersely.
July 16, 2010, 1:15 pmcommatose by now says:
For Alast:
There once was a big city newspaper editor
July 16, 2010, 1:30 pmwho deleted an optional comma in an op-ed letter
only he knew when he printed “those, this and that”
the piece was about pronouns, not sundry scat
He didn’t care- serial pauses in his paper irked whenever he bedded her.
Pedro the Lion says:
Hasn’t been used in journalism for years.
July 16, 2010, 1:31 pmCrunchy Frog says:
What’s so hard to figure out? $500K goes to Bob Alice, and the other $500K goes to his brother, Charlie Alice.
I have to admit that Alice is a rather unusual surname.
July 16, 2010, 1:35 pmSteve G says:
I don’t disagree about that. It’s just that I suspect Ayn Rand would take exception to the pairing (I won’t speculate on God’s feelings on the matter), and it seems a little backhanded to thank someone in a way that would be likely to offend the person being thanked. (Perhaps the speaker’s parents were uber-liberal atheists, and the entire speech was an act of passive aggression…)
IIRC, there wasn’t so much a discussion as one line to the effect of “some people love it, some people hate it, and you should never get between the two at a party.”
July 16, 2010, 1:58 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Crunchy Frog:
WIN.
July 16, 2010, 2:08 pmRob Berra says:
This one makes my head go ‘splodey. It’s not stylistic or optional, it’s flat-out f*****’ wrong. I see it in nominally-college-level work and I have to resist the temptation to go all Grammar Nazi on the writer. Grrrr…
July 16, 2010, 2:21 pmAnym_Avey says:
The sentence is vigorously ambiguous on multiple counts, and no serial comma can save it. Therefore, the distinction of the comma is irrelevant, and the sentence should be entirely rewritten.
July 16, 2010, 2:22 pmKirk Parker says:
Seamus,
The UN is against the serial comma? One more reason to be for it…
Houston,
Yes, but the pause is actually there in spoken speech, to exactly the same degree as it is for earlier elements of the series that do have the comma.
July 16, 2010, 2:22 pmohwilleke says:
“The point is that the two lines have different meanings — in the first, the woods are lovely; “dark and deep” then becomes a descriptor or illustration of that loveliness.”
In modern punctuation, to convey the first sense a semicolon is used. A comma is no longer capable of conveying that idea. The pre-conjuction comma has been rendered semantically empty by usage.
July 16, 2010, 2:39 pmenough to make you nuts says:
the use of “Acorn” in place of the acronym “ACORN”
is squirrely, which is acorny comment. That, too.
July 16, 2010, 2:43 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Anym_Avey,
The sentence is vigorously ambiguous on multiple counts, and no serial comma can save it. Therefore, the distinction of the comma is irrelevant, and the sentence should be entirely rewritten.
On the contrary: If the meaning is in fact that the exhibit contained images that were of (or by) Asians, whites, and blacks, the serial comma makes that meaning entirely unambiguous. It’s only if the writer meant something else that the sentence would need entire rewriting.
July 16, 2010, 2:50 pmenough to make you nuts says:
Just to be clear about serial commas, when writing a series with commas, such as listing commas, joining commas, gapping commas and bracketing commas, no comma is necessary between the last two commas.
July 16, 2010, 2:54 pmBama 1L says:
Once you have had to follow a style manual, you really read newspapers differently and realize that much of what you are reading is not the result of authorial decision.
July 16, 2010, 3:00 pmanonymous says:
But the wording of the listing used singulars- “asian, black and white” images. Your upper case A and plurals clarify one interpretation, Michelle.
Anyway, how could the exhibit have had images by Asians without celadon green?
July 16, 2010, 3:01 pmDeezRightWingNutz says:
Hey, Ezra Koenig! David Post gives a fuck about an Oxford comma.
July 16, 2010, 3:44 pmskd says:
I thought I was the only one fighting this battle! I will forever use the serial comma, though I know it will continue to be removed as long as there are those above me reviewing my work.
July 16, 2010, 3:51 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
anonymous,
But the wording of the listing used singulars– “asian, black and white” images. Your upper case A and plurals clarify one interpretation, Michelle.
No, my intended clarification was “[A]sian, black, and white images.” There the comma alone indicates what’s meant. (I suggested “black-and-white Asian images” for a different meaning.)
If by plurals you mean my “If the meaning is in fact that the exhibit contained images that were of (or by) Asians, whites, and blacks, the serial comma makes that meaning entirely unambiguous,” that was an explanation of what the comma does, not a substitute text.
Query: What is the context in which “Asian” gets a lower-case “a”? I don’t know of any, apart of course from (1) people who type blog comments entirely without capital letters; and (2) e.e. cummings.
Anyway, how could the exhibit have had images by Asians without celadon green?
Don’t you go being cute, now ;-)
July 16, 2010, 4:09 pmprince of wails says:
skd,
I shan’t quibble with your use of “will”, “though” and an immoderate exclamation point,” although I shall refuse to use a serial comma when saying so!!!
July 16, 2010, 4:11 pmSuperSkeptic says:
I once, recently, formed or saw a sentence with triple “that”‘s – no commas in between. It was amazing, at the time.
Anyway, big fan of the serial comma…
July 16, 2010, 4:15 pmprince of wails says:
Correction: ““will”,” should be “”will,”,” I believe. American rules.
July 16, 2010, 4:19 pmBruce Hayden says:
This is one of those discussions where I don’t think there will be a resolution. I put in the serial commas, and my boss and his secretary take them out (mine is trained to leave them alone). But then, they move punctuation inside quotes, and I move them out when we are talking about short phrases and the punctuation applies to the sentence and not the quoted phrases.
July 16, 2010, 4:39 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
I, too, was taught to avoid serial commas ‘way back when. The rational was that in a list, a comma replaces a conjunction, and therefore “comma and” is the same as “and and” and (for instance) “comma nor” is the same as “nor nor.” I agree that the serial comma often clarifies, but I still have the odd twinge of guilt when I use one.
July 16, 2010, 4:48 pmRGR says:
Perhaps no one knows what poetic impulse moved Frost, or his editor, to alter the original line by adding the comma after “dark” in subsequent editions; and Post may be right in assuming a desire to isolate, and thereby emphasize, three separate characteristics of the woods. But I rather like the original, “dark and deep,” since it can be read (ambiguously, I agree) either as two separate attributes separately felt or as one (“darkly deep”) that hints at two — the rhetorical figure hendiadys. I don’t know whether Frost liked using such figures, and others on this thread better versed in his poetry than I can perhaps inform us. At all events, “dark and deep” still scans well, as does its internal metrical equivalent “darkly deep.”
As for the serial comma generally, avoidance of ambiguity, as most commenters have agreed, must be the guiding principle. Leave it out where all but the most captious readers will not, and insert it where all but the most careless will, be led astray.
July 16, 2010, 5:35 pmmgarbowski says:
Every law firm I have ever worked at has given copies of Strunk & White to new arrivals. The vast majority of lawyers I have worked for or with have wanted to delete serial commas in anything I draft. To their credit, they have almost always deferred when I point out that the use of serial commas is the second rule in the entire book.
July 16, 2010, 5:42 pmW.J. says:
Style is as style does. From The Times’s stylebook: “In general, do not use a comma before and or or in a series: The snow stalled cars, buses and trains. But use a comma in sentences like this to avoid confusion: A martini is made of gin and dry vermouth, and a chilled glass is essential.”
July 16, 2010, 6:09 pmButterfinger says:
But use a comma in sentences like this to avoid confusion: A martini is made of gin and dry vermouth, and a chilled glass is essential.”
Good point, W.J. Compound sentences require commas before the operative conjunctions, as in:
[True story] I broke a favorite martini glass yesterday and was shaken, but I wasn’t stirred to replace it.
July 16, 2010, 6:31 pmSteve2 says:
But that would violate basic English usage.If there were two “boxes” and only two people, you wouldn’t write “…between Alice, Bob.” It seems like basic lawyer-work to express the two-box, three-people idea clearly, if not tersely.
Not lawyer-like, engineer-like. I see the comma, I think the linguistic equivalent of the parenthesis in math. Of course, it’s best to use semi-colons too so you can nest lists. Although you’re right, “Alice, Bob and Charlie” works as two boxes best if there’s a third box: “Alice, Bob and Charlie, Serafina”. Still, “Alice, Bob and Charlie” reads to me like it’s missing an “And”, since I read commas as dividers. Bob and Charlie don’t have a comma but do have a linking conjunction, therefore they must form a single unit.
Anyway, I was taught that the serial comma is mandatory, and I will use it as such for its added precision – the same reason I’ll continue to deliberately split infinitives.
July 16, 2010, 6:39 pmBarb says:
I thought the comma was replaced by the “and” in a series –and unnecessary in front of “and.” I use commas (and dashes) a lot for pauses and clarity, expression,etc. –rules be hanged.
July 16, 2010, 9:06 pmBarb says:
Me, too! It just doesn’t make sense to me to put all punctuation inside the quote mark if it doesn’t pertain to the quoted phrase or quoted word at the end of a sentence.
However, we wouldn’t put a period after a quotation mark preceded by a question mark would we –as in, “He asked me, “Do you want to go to town?” Period –no. In quoted statements at the end of a sentence, I guess all the punctuation goes on the inside and pertains to the quoted section. I can’t think of an example now, where the punctuation seems more correct on the outside of the quote marks, but there are times.
July 16, 2010, 9:16 pmAislabie says:
I can tolerate people who delete the serial comma if they will let me split infinitives and put prepositions at the end of sentences.
July 16, 2010, 9:17 pmchiMaxx says:
While Mr. Post correctly describes the grammar and meaning shift in Frost’s line due to the presence or absence of the comma, his history of the poem’s punctuation is off. Frost wrote it without the comma after “dark.” That comma was added after Frost’s death by editor Edward Connery Lathem. And when you listen to Frost read the poem, it’s clear he reads it without the comma there–the dark deepness is what makes those woods lovely to him.
That said, one thing that was made clear in my years as a copyeditor: This is one item on which the decision of the house style guide is considered absolute. If the publisher’s style guide is based on The Chicago Manual of Style, you will always use the serial (or Harvard or Oxford) comma. If the publisher relies on the AP Style Manual, you will be removing them.
There are fierce advocates in this war on both sides, and have been for more than 50 years. This particular battle is not new, and there really has been n noticeable “deterioration” over time, no matter which side you hail from. For the average writer, the key is to be consistent within any particular piece of writing.
July 16, 2010, 9:39 pmchiMaxx says:
Aislabie:
This stand against the Miss Thistlebottoms of the world is one I’m inclined to earnestly agree with.
July 16, 2010, 9:43 pmBobolink says:
I thought that it has long been the case that in *journalism* in particular, the serial/oxford/harvard comma is generally NOT used, while elsewhere, it IS more commonly used.
If that’s the case, then David is not seeing a real trend but simply unintentionally paying more attention to the (non-)use of the comma in *journalism.*
I don’t know why journalists would be more likely to give it up, but if i were to be forced to give a possibly-too-clever-by-half explanation, I might suggest that it was to save on ink or something like that…
July 16, 2010, 10:09 pmFedya says:
This bread will be fresh momentarily. ;-)
July 16, 2010, 10:30 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
I read somewhere that Frost was irritated about the insertion of that comma because he meant “dark and deep” to modify “lovely”.
But I wonder how many people here opining about how he should have punctuated it (with a dash or a colon, forsooth!) are familiar with the poem. I memorized it when I was a kid. A comma is just fine there.
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
July 16, 2010, 10:58 pmBut I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Steve2 says:
I put a period after a quotation mark preceded by a question mark. Punctuation inside a quotation mark (or parenthesis) can’t cross over the quotation mark (or parenthesis), which is like a barrier, so you need that period outside the quotation to end the sentence that contains the quotation. He asked me, “Do you want to go to town?”. I shouted at him, “Not with you, I hate you!”.
July 16, 2010, 11:42 pmanonymous says:
Steve2, mightn’t it get a little awkward when someone quotes your punctuated example, “I shouted at him, ‘Not with you, I hate you!’.”?!
July 16, 2010, 11:53 pmzombyboy says:
I’m a big fan of the serial comma (although I learned to call it a trailing comma many years ago). I think it provides clarity in even the most complicated lists and does nothing to detract from a smaller, simpler list. I will continue to fight the good fight in honor of that little comma and I fully expect to win.
Of course, my copy editors at the last two companies that I worked for disagreed and I didn’t even manage to win the battle with them.
In retrospect, I might be wrong about that whole winning thing…
July 17, 2010, 12:12 amnancy etticoat says:
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks,
each sack had seven cats,
each cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks and wives,
how many were going to St. Ives?
Wow, forget the comma, this is a serial issue of another sort.
July 17, 2010, 12:19 amneurodoc says:
OK, I suppose so, though I don’t think it has ever caused me that confusion.
What about “whether you do or don’t capitalize prepositions that appear in the middle of titles”? There’s some implication in that choice?
July 17, 2010, 3:14 amhal says:
Maybe I’m misremembering what I’ve all but forgotten, but isn’t it best not to capitalize prepositions, conjunctions or articles in the middle of a title, as in:
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
? It’s all about clear and consistent communication:
…hello Dmitri? Listen uh uh I can’t hear too well. Do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little?… Oh-ho, that’s much better… yeah… huh… yes… Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri… Clear and plain and coming through fine… I’m coming through fine, too, eh?… Good, then…
!
July 17, 2010, 9:37 amL says:
Conjunctions, articles, and short prepositions. “For” would not be capitalized; “without” would.
July 17, 2010, 10:10 amLindaC says:
You are wrong, wrong wrong. I was taught that the comma in a series was a substitute for “and.” Thus, such a list would read “Jan, Feb, March AND April.” Otherwise, it would be an awkward “Jan and Feb and March and April.” If there is an “and,” there should be no comma.
July 17, 2010, 10:48 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
James’ implies it belongs to multiple people surnamed Jame.
My husband attended a performance yesterday of a new chamber-music piece based on a poem by Jorge Luis Borges. He reports that in the program notes, the possessive form of the poet’s name was repeatedly rendered “Borge’s.” His first reaction (like mine) was to think, “Who knew Victor Borge was so versatile?”
July 17, 2010, 10:53 amAislabie says:
The basic problem with these arguments is that too many people listen to their eighth grade English teachers and don’t consult dictionaries, grammar books and academic style guides, and printed examples. If they did, there wouldn’t be any arguments. This uncritical devotion to schoolmarm lore leads to such absurdities as:
“Between” is for two and “among” is for three or more.
“Since” and “while” refer to time and can’t be used in place of “because” and “although.”
Don’t start or end a sentence with a preposition.
Often such advice comes from those who use “such” as a demonstrative adjective or definite article, write that a whole is “comprised of” the parts, and have ever dared to use the savage “prior to.” They probably double space after periods too, but life is short.
July 17, 2010, 12:14 pmchiMaxx says:
That’s purely a matter of style. At one publication I worked for, ALL prepositions, regardless of length, were lower-case in titles, including long ones like “considering.”
The “short prepositions” rule is common but not standard, and ill-advised, since it can lead either to to inconsistency (some editors who think “about” is short and others who think it is long) or actual consistency with the appearance of inconsistency: If the rule is to, say, capitalize any preposition five or more letters long, then you could end up with a title like “A Season with Ice but Without Snow”
July 17, 2010, 12:37 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Aislabie,
“Between” is for two and “among” is for three or more.
You mean that’s wrong? Obviously “between” originally referred to two; you need only look at the word. I didn’t get the memo that it’d changed meanings. Do you maintain that nothing looks strange about, e.g., “Let’s keep this between us six”? Or “I saw him walking among the two trees”?
I’ve never seen the “since/while” rule before. Nor the one about not starting a sentence with a preposition. (The not-ending-with-one is, of course, notorious — the old “up with which I will not put” line attributed to Churchill pretty well demolished it a long time ago.)
We all have our writing styles, and practically all of them break “rules” or stylistic guidelines or both. I overuse semicolons and dashes and parens; I like starting sentences with conjunctions. But I don’t split infinitives if I can help it. [I'm inserting examples in here on purpose, should anyone wonder ;-)] I think that “masterful” and “masterly” mean different things, and that “envy” and “jealousy” also mean different things. And I treat “data” and “bacteria” as plural nouns; think that “parameters” are a species of variable; and (yes) say that a whole “comprises” its parts. Bloody schoolmarm, me. (Or oughtn’t that to be “I”? Well, shove it.)
A lot of these things have nothing to do with meaning. I write in the way that seems best to me, but it’s a rare split infinitive that makes the intended meaning ambiguous. The serial comma convention is the sort of thing that actually improves the language, in the sense that if everyone recognizes the convention, finer shades of meaning are achievable more economically. In the same way, originally distinct words’ collapsing into practical synonyms deprives the language of something. There’s nothing I can do about it, but I don’t need to like it.
July 17, 2010, 12:55 pmToby says:
Off topic, but…
Puts me in mind of the recent threat of a lawsuit recived by a [female] realtor in Durham NC who has mailed er flyers to a neighborhood. The flyer included a rather standard smiling picture of the real estate agent. A muslim family threatened to sue for the harm she had done ot their son and his religious upbringing. The agent settled.
July 17, 2010, 12:57 pmchiMaxx says:
I just wish Mr. Post would add an update to correct the record on the Frost poem. The correct version is (a). That’s how Frost wrote it, read it, and always intended it. It was an editor who added the comma after Frost’s death, changing the meaning of the line in the very ways Mr. Post describes. In new editions, this editor’s meddling is being reversed.
July 17, 2010, 1:56 pmL says:
There are about a hundred comments before yours, many of them thoughtful and serious, and if you read them, you might start to realize that, despite what you were taught, neither practice is “wrong, wrong wrong” (heh). It’s one thing to advocate against the serial comma, but to just come out and say that it’s “wrong, wrong wrong” ignores a lot of serious writers who choose to use it, for whatever reason.
Yes, sorry. I should have been more clear – I didn’t mean to suggest it was a rule, but a style choice. It was also my impression that it was a very common style choice, but I might be mistaken there.
I agree – this is a good example of why prepositions should be treated consistently regardless of length.
This story buried the needle in my BS detector. Not saying you’re lying – maybe the person who told it to you was lying. Or maybe it even happened, but without a link I’ll never believe it. Take out the last sentence and I might believe it. Still, very implausible.
July 17, 2010, 1:57 pmchiMaxx says:
L:
The Durham realtor story sets off my BS detector, too. There is so much commercial mail of all types bearing the smiling unveiled faces of women (including those envelopes stuffed with local coupons) that it would seem the responsibility of parents who want to shield their son from such to control his access to the mail.
Absurd things happen, but without a link to a credible source this story is too perfectly absurd to be believed.
July 17, 2010, 2:24 pmBarb says:
I understand you; this is logical to me. However, even in college, if memory serves me correctly, teachers were always correcting me and demanding all the punctuation on the inside of the quotation. I think they would view your periods used above as extraneous. Is this period after the quote mark and after the punctuation within it, which you have demonstrated, standard practice?? or unique to you?
July 17, 2010, 2:49 pmCardinal Fang says:
I hate the Oxford comma. It seems unsophisticated, superfluous and old-school. If the meaning is clear 99.9% of the time without it, we don’t need it. And I’m the biggest punctuation Nazi I know.
July 17, 2010, 2:56 pmBarb says:
Laura, I, too, memorized this poem –for a speech contest –along with a couple of other Frost poems. The one about the saw.
July 17, 2010, 2:59 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
I think that after a person innocently punctuates a sentence in a way that seems right to her, and has a teacher rain down death and fire on her for it, it’s reasonable for her to have a negative reaction to other people’s use of the same punctuation. One has an aversion to something that one has been figuratively slapped over. If I’m right, prescriptiveness such as Linda’s may be a result of agressively prescriptive teachers.
My daughter’s college comp teacher marked off one of her first papers for a serial comma that he didn’t think belonged. Mistake. She carried in the style handbook listed on his syllabus and showed him chapter and verse. Later in the semester, she remarked to me that she didn’t think he even read her papers – she got “A”s on them all, with no comments whatsoever.
July 17, 2010, 3:03 pmSteve2 says:
To my knowledge it’s unique to me (or at least not standard practice). Of course, I hope I’ll be a trendsetter in that area.
You made me laugh, and the block of punctuation at the end is indeed a bit awkward. On the other hand, it conveyed plenty of information to me: an exclamation was quoted in a sentence that was itself quoted and asked about with emphasis. Arguably each of those six glyphs is necessary, in its exact location, to get all that information across.
None of which has anything to do with the serial comma, does it?
July 17, 2010, 3:35 pmanonymous says:
Good for you, Steve2! Keep doing things your logical way ;)
But serial commas aren’t logical to me, except in ambiguous, poorly written cases, since a conjunction (and, or, nor)* is needed between any last two items of a serial list, even if the last item is a compound construction with its own “and.”
(and, or or nor)?
July 17, 2010, 3:49 pmchiMaxx says:
anonymous:
So, for breakfast we had orange juice, toast and bacon and eggs.
That, said. Steve: Your logic about punctuation marks is flawed. They work like Cascading Style Sheets: The more specific or !important selector overrides the less specific or !important. A period is more !important than a comma. A question mark or exclamation point is more specific than a period.
Barb: either you are misremembering or your instructors weren’t teaching American standard punctuation style (and the first two rules here come down from typesetters concerned about visual appearance, not grammarians):
July 17, 2010, 5:12 pm* Commas and periods always go inside quotation marks
* Colons and semicolons always go outside
* Question and exclamation marks can go in or out depending on whether it is the quotation or the sentence around that is the question or exclamation:
–So what did you do when he said, “Come here”?
–I just stood there and said, “What do you want?”
Throbert McGee says:
Why on earth would you think that a pause, by its very nature, must interfere with the flow of the text? Pauses that are “s’pposta” be there will enhance the flow, not detract from it. What messes up the flow is when the comma indicating a “natural pause” is placed in an unnatural position, or is omitted entirely.
July 17, 2010, 5:27 pmThrobert McGee says:
Anyway, my rule of thumb in these matters is that Clarity comes first, Euphony comes second, and What They Taught You In School comes a very distant third.
July 17, 2010, 5:34 pmAllan Spiegel says:
The New York Times doesn’t consider the serial comma to be optional; it forbids the serial comma. If the serial comma appears in a piece of (nonquoted) Times prose, it’s because the style desk has slipped up. British book and newspaper publishers, in general, tend to omit the serial comma; most American book publishers require it.
July 17, 2010, 6:44 pmpunctuation diva says:
The issue of the serial comma is: use the comma unless the last conjoined item is a unit, such as, bread and butter, husband and wife, or bagel and lox.
July 17, 2010, 7:15 pmBarb says:
No –according to you, with the periods and commas ALWAYS going within the quotation marks, they WERE teaching the standard punctuation and I was frequently doing it wrong. However, I don’t remember having colons and semi-colons to consider with regard to quotation marks. But your example about the question mark going within or without makes perfect sense.
Where standard seems illogical to me is in an example like this: St. Paul was known for what we refer to as his “Damascus Road experience.” It looks right –but the period has nothing to do with the quoted phrase but more the whole sentence, so it seems the period would logically go on the outside of the quote marks. But this isn’t as good an example as I’d like to give.
July 17, 2010, 7:37 pmBarb says:
Where but on this blog would I find people who are purists about grammar and punctuation!? I’ve enjoyed the discussion! I honestly never heard of the Oxford comma or the phrase “serial comma” and was taught, as others here, that the “and” takes the place of the comma and vice-versa –that commas were to separate items in a series in the absence of conjunctions.
I’m also glad to hear that commas can be used wherever I want a pause –great! I thought there were more rules prohibiting that when the English profs were marking up my paper.
July 17, 2010, 7:46 pmAislabie says:
Am I the only one who sees the irony here?
July 17, 2010, 8:56 pmAislabie says:
Read what I wrote. “Among” is not for two. However, “a treaty between six countries” would be correct. Meanings change in 900 years, and dictionaries are helpful.
July 17, 2010, 9:07 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
Aislabie,
If I found myself trying to pick a word in “a treaty [between/among] six countries” and decided that “among” looked funny, I wouldn’t rush for “between” or for the dictionary; I’d see if I could use something entirely different, like “binding” or “signed by” or the like.
There’s something more than ironic in urging writers who keep to old rules to “go to the dictionary” and discover that the old rules are officially rescinded. The dictionary is tracking usage, including usage by people who would never think of consulting a dictionary. You’re essentially asking conscientious writers to ratify the choices of unconscientious ones. Wouldn’t it be better for us all to write as seems best to us, even if that means some of us hang onto our absurd hangups about “between” &c.?
(By the way, what’s the purpose of “among,” if “between” subsumes it? Is it obsolete?)
July 17, 2010, 9:37 pmanonymous says:
punctuation diva says:
The issue of the serial comma is: use the comma unless the last conjoined item is a unit, such as, bread and butter, husband and wife, or bagel and lox.
Perhaps there was a mistake in stating your rule, since your listing uses a serial comma before the last conjoined item?
My taste* runs to omitting the serial comma, except in some cases of a compound last item, as your series with lox is written.
*I’d like a Margarita on the rocks, no salt, one beef taco, and chips and salsa, please.
But, chiMaxx’s example (to support or refute what I wrote– couldn’t tell) is also fine:
So, for breakfast we had orange juice, toast and bacon and eggs.
We must all be starving. (We all must be starving? Starving we all must be.)
July 17, 2010, 9:48 pmBob says:
I’ve been proofreading and doing some light editing of mss. for author Robert Blumetti, who does not use the serial comma. There were lots of places where its inclusion would make sentences read easier IMO, and I started putting them in, but then I realized consistency would demand a lot of such changes, so I stopped. If that’s his style, that’s the way he wants it. Otherwise it’s no longer proofreading and a little light editing, it’s heavy editing.
July 17, 2010, 10:06 pmbrit whom says:
Betwixt and amongst, Michelle.
July 17, 2010, 10:11 pmBob says:
No, that’s, “Jumps, hoots, and shits!”
July 17, 2010, 10:35 pmToby says:
Sorry, as she settled, on the advice of her office, which my wife works in, there was no newspaper story, and no link. Many people walk around terrified as what the law might do to them, and will do anything to stay out of the clutches of lawyers.
Hence the word “settled”
In other news, I had an early morning bowel movement. No link or photo forthcoming, so perhaps it didn’t happen. Perhaps L remains skeptical.
July 17, 2010, 10:48 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
brit whom,
You don’t know how hard it was for me to wean myself off British English after less than a year there, twenty years ago. I wrote the likes of “towards” and “afterwards” and “whilst” and amongst” and “cancelled” and “travelled,” only to have editors laboriously remove them. I tried to sneak “tosh” into a NYT article once, but no go. (I think it got changed to “nonsense,” or some such.)
Now, of course, word processing programs sold in the US censorially underline all these (to Americans) solecisms. So I write “travelled” anyway, and wait for my editor to e-mail testily, “Don’t you have spell check?” (Actually, he’s a kind editor; when he sees this sort of thing, he just changes it and says nothing.)
July 17, 2010, 11:10 pmbrit whom says:
How can well-travelled not be good?
July 17, 2010, 11:29 pmGeneration Twitter says:
I blame twitter – people are trying to save every last character and can’t be bothered with an extra comma.
July 17, 2010, 11:31 pmbrit whom says:
Growing up in the US, I must’ve had a Crayola labeled “grey,” because I spelt it that way for years. To this day, “grey” seems less black and white and mistier, smudgier, tarnished sterlingier then “gray,” to me ;)
July 17, 2010, 11:36 pmbrit whom says:
Or mustard brownish, of course.
July 17, 2010, 11:41 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
brit whom,
Growing up in the US, I must’ve had a Crayola labeled “grey,” because I spelt it that way for years. To this day, “grey” seems less black and white and mistier, smudgier, tarnished sterlingier then “gray,” to me ;)
Maybe a carryover from “greyhound”? I always preferred “gray,” maybe because of the visual rhyme with “clay.”
Somewhere in the Susan Cooper “The Dark is Rising” series that I read as a kid there’s a bit about whether a boy’s eyes are “grey” or “gray.” The narrator attached definite meanings — not “this or that shade,” but affects — to both adjectives. I wish I could remember which was which.
July 18, 2010, 12:03 amL says:
Right, I forgot that there is never any reporting on settled lawsuits. What was I thinking?
(1) Early morning bowel movements happen all the time, and (2) people don’t make up stories of early morning bowel movements to score political points. Contrast this with a story which raises the popular bogeymen of bullying lawsuits, the hypersensitive, and Muslims. Lawsuits with far more merit than this are dismissed all the time for being frivolous. No ethical lawyer would have threatened to file such a lawsuit, and no competent lawyer would have recommended settling. Again, I’m not saying it’s impossible that it happened. I’m just saying it’s so unlikely it’s not worth believing.
July 18, 2010, 7:53 amToby says:
Fair enough, but the papers only cover lawsuits filed. Suspicion is rational, and no one in the real estate office generalized this as “all muslims”, but instead all talk about it as “some jerk trying to intimidate”. The the broker in charge advised a letter of apolgy, it was refused, they handed him some cash to make it go away, it never got into the papers. The agents all got told to not put out flyers. It is not in the papers. A Lawyer was never even called…it was the business rational of the office that the small amout to go away was less than the cost of calling a lawyer.
As to numerous ealier threads on Volokh, “why do people hate lawyers” you have exhbit A – that winning or losing a case is expensive, and an agent whose income is neglible last (as many home real estate agents had) feels herself so close to the bone that the cost of a lawyer is too much.
When there are many laws, and many are badly and broadly written, and often defy common sense, more and more people would rather give someone a few hundred bucks to go away, than to hire a lawyer, even for a couple hours, to risk getting their name in the paper, named as a racist or other bad thing, to lose a day of their own life to arguments or depositions or even interviews with the paper. Having been named in the paper, does the one house they might list in the next month not call them, does somebody start stealing or defacing their yard signs, have they destroyed their personal brand?
Does it affect their real estate office as well, and the other agents that work there? Do they have to worry about it after hours. (Many real estate agents pride themselves on empathy and working ith families in homes. Being called bad by someone just eats them up). Are they resented by the other agents, just a little. Does that cause them to not get that referral? Does another agent not show one of their houses, because they do not want to answer a question from a homebuyer about the listing agent?
Far better to hand someone a few hundred bucks to go away. Far better for the office to throw in a few hundred bucks as well. Far better to get rid of the distraction, and the risk, than to ever let suit be filed.
And lawyers don’t see it, because it never is brought before them. And you can keep your narrative that others are disengenuously see bogeyman, and that laws that are unpredictable enough, to the layman, to raise unwarranted fears have no costs, and that what you see in your practice is anything more than a thin slice of reality seen when folks can’t bear it anymore.
But it happens. And it did. And it happens more often than Lexus will tell you.
July 18, 2010, 8:30 amL says:
This is all fair as well. All the things you say in general make sense, and you make a very good point that lawyers should keep in mind that what they see represents only a very thin slice of reality. But this is such an extreme example that it does strain credibility. A family decides to live in the United States, where i’m guessing >99% of women go unveiled all the time, and somehow they think they can extort money from a woman because their son saw her unveiled? If I weren’t so nice, I would ask for the name of this realtor – I could just threaten to sue them just for existing every time I needed a few hundred bucks, since I know they don’t like to involve lawyers or defend suits.
I should have said earlier and will say now that I don’t necessarily think whoever told you this story made it up out of whole cloth. I think it’s possible that something very much like this happened, but the details got changed. And I will say for maybe the third time that I do consider it possible that the story happened the way you told it.
The other thing I would say is that this isn’t really a “why people hate lawyers” story – it’s a “because people hate lawyers story.” If a(n ethical) lawyer had been involved on the plaintiffs’ side, no threat of a lawsuit would have even been sent. If a lawyer had been called in on the defendants’ side, they might have been informed that it would likely be even cheaper to defend the suit than to settle it. I don’t have the North Carolina court rules handy, but I would not be surprised to find that a prevailing defendant can recover fees and costs from a plaintiff in a suit as completely meritless as this one.
In other words – someone (presumably) without a lawyer threatens to sue someone, and someone decides not to get a lawyer and to pay the bully, and because of this, we hate lawyers?
July 18, 2010, 8:59 amToby says:
Yeah, that sums it up. Note, I know most of the agents involved, directly, or who have now been counseled to not put out fliers. Note as well that it is *my* feeling that what they did was absurd.
At the risk of stereotyping, few of them became residential real estate agents because of a business background or through even taking a course in business law. They feel that they are in helping professions, they are “moms” going back to work, whether to make ends meet, or because the kids ar in school, or because they found themseleves suddenly single for reasons they did not plan. They see themselves as helping families, and getting paid, not as hard nosed busines professionals. The lawyers they know are contract pushers who close mortgages. They are all shell-shocked and scared after the last two years, with some of them feeling the additional burden of being the primary bread-winner instead of supplemental, perhaps for the first time.
Uncertainty about the law, and fear of having google show this charge as the one fact about them, coupled with the economic fear described above makes them, um, twitchy. So as irrational as your summary sounds, its about right.
And thanks for the gracious reply – we have now distracted for too long from the critical comments thread. My fault – a small digression from comatose’s amusing observations on buttons led to a side comment, being called out set me off, and if any more belongs on Volokh, it belongs on another thread.
Grammar is too important for us to be distracted…
July 18, 2010, 9:32 amToby says:
That was “commas thread” not “coments thread”
July 18, 2010, 9:33 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
This argument makes sense to me. Because all cases of extortion are based on reasonable thinking and impeccable logic. And because frivolous lawsuit bringers never prevail.
July 18, 2010, 10:23 amL says:
Right, because my argument is that the story is implausible because the logic was less than impeccable, or because the people were being unreasonable. And because I said frivolous lawsuit-bringers never prevail.
(It’s not a great criticism of what I did say to point out how stupid it would be to believe what I didn’t say.)
July 18, 2010, 10:30 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
L, you’re thinking it’s unlikely that the Muslim family would have extorted money, becuse it doesn’t seem reasonable to you to think that they’d think they would get any. But you’re not an extortioner (extorter?*) so their reasoning wouldn’t make sense to you anyway. I asked somebody why in the hell I was getting bombarded with email spam for viagra and cialis, of all things, or for Nigerian bank scams that a four-year-old could see through, and their response was that it’s a no-lose proposition for the spammers – if one in ten thousand people bites, they’ve won.
* etymology = outside the tort system? Getting money in an end run around the tort system?
July 18, 2010, 10:54 amToby says:
Trying to turn is back again
Management of risk is an underapreciated cost of doing business. Avoiding risk that one cannot control looms very large in in the small businessman’s mind. Our body of laws is large and unwieldy (reference, page counts of recent high profile legislation), creating an impression that all such risk is ineffable at best. Since it may be unimaginably large, avoiding such risk, however slight is more important to the small businessman than seems rational to the practtioner. As such, its cost to business is larger than rational analysis might suggest.
Small, tight, unambiguous language reduces that risk. “Old fashion” constructs such as the serial comma and the oxford comma can reduce such ambiguity.
July 18, 2010, 10:58 amAislabie says:
What the dictionary tells me is that the “old rules” are often not old rules at all but recent prescriptivist drivel not widely obeyed and contrary to centuries of prior usage. If something really was a universal rule until it started to slip in 1960, I will follow the rule. If something was widely used and accepted from 900 until now but fell out of favor with scolds in the 18th century who have unsuccessfully tried to impose their invented rules on the rest of us, I will ignore the scolds.
In response to your last question:
OED:
July 18, 2010, 3:57 pmneurodoc says:
To be sure, a bagel with lox and cream cheese is great, even on a less than excellent bagel, which so many are. A bagel with lox and cream cheese topped with a slice of red onion is better still. If there is no lox to be had, I will settle for a bagel with just cream cheese, but I can’t imagine a bagel with lox and no cream cheese. So for me, and I expect the majority of people who like good bagels (not stale but “al dente,” not doughy/chewy as so many goyishe ones are), the unit would be “bagel and cream cheese” or “bagel, lox and cream cheese.” If you offered me just “bagel and lox,” I would politely say “no thank you.” If you offered me “bagel, lox, and cream cheese, I would say “thank you” and nothing about serial comma or no serial comma.
July 18, 2010, 6:12 pmneurodoc says:
July 18, 2010, 6:13 pmBarb says:
And what does it MEAN when a neurodoc quotes himself, I wonder???
July 18, 2010, 7:06 pmneurodoc says:
You know, don’t you Barb, that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. (And sometimes the edit function doesn’t work as intended.)
July 18, 2010, 7:22 pmMr. B. says:
I learned about this in college, 20+ years ago. I don’t know how true the story is, but I remember being told that the way this came about was that the comma preceding “and” was dropped to save ink. Small percentage, but big $$$ over time.
July 18, 2010, 9:37 pmneurodoc says:
That sounds very improbable to me, but can’t say it is impossible. Years ago, in a cost cutting move back in the days when meals in coach on domestic flights were part of the ticket price, the head of American Airlines ordered that one less olive be put in the salads they served and supposedly that small measure saved the airline $100K per year. Later I found myself sitting on a plane next to the son of that former AA prez. (As a family perk, he had a lifetime free airline pass.) I asked him about the olive story and he laughed, saying it was true and his father was very pleased with himself for having taken that economizing step. But fewer commas meaning less ink used, and hence a measurable cost savings, I’m skeptical.
July 18, 2010, 11:54 pmSmooth, like a Rhapsody says:
neurodoc:
July 19, 2010, 8:26 am“…one fewer olive…”
Gene Callahan says:
No, because there IS a pause there, comma or not.
July 19, 2010, 12:32 pmGene Callahan says:
If you are nutty, and think punctuation marks actually DO things, then, yes, I suppose it is “like a barrier.”
July 19, 2010, 12:49 pmneurodoc says:
Touche!* The funny thing is that I regularly correct my wife on the less/fewer distinction, but to no avail. Unfortunately, it is a distinction that few observe.
*If I wanted to add an accent mark (acute rather than grave?) over the “e” in “touche,” is there a way for me to do it? Is it an “overstrike” function, however one does that, if one can?
July 19, 2010, 1:25 pmneurodoc says:
If they don’t DO anything, then why do we have them? And I think Steve2‘s “like a barrier” simile is a helpful one.
July 19, 2010, 1:29 pmAdamsDrafting » Blog Archive » More Syntactic Ambiguity: The Serial Comma says:
[...] had suggested that the serial comma is important for clarity in contracts. Here’s the entire comment, posted by “Mark”: I think we should at least all agree that the serial comma is an [...]
July 19, 2010, 1:47 pmMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
neurodoc,
Try & eacute ; (remove the spaces, and substitute “grave” for “acute” if that’s what you want):
é
Voilà!
July 19, 2010, 3:21 pm