Syntactic heresies OR Clearly there's something wrong with me

[learnedax]

I opened up Eats, Shoots & Leaves, and I do not make it through the acknowledgments before snidely thinking to myself "Oh, the author's one of those grammarians." Which is to say, she has not seen the light and so does not use the serial comma. Apparently that inelegant ambiguity is more tolerated in her native Britain, however, which I should perhaps take as an extenuating circumstance.

Comments

Interesting timing

[anu3bis.livejournal.com]

BalsamicDragon and I just had a nice discussion on the use of the serial comma. While she is ambivalent on the use, I am passionate that it is necessary for clarity and consistency.

It's rather odd, because there are very few issues I am passionate about. I'm quite easygoing, forgiving on any communications outside the formal, but when I see a bad piece of business writing, I have to rip it apart. Fortunately, it's part of my job.

I keep red pens on the desk for the folks I know can take the criticism well. The green pens are for correcting folks who don't know any better or might fly off the handle at seeing so much red on one page. One of my team's just graduated from green to red.