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

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

The serial comma is an abomination! It was sometimes referred to at the optional comma. I never use it, and tend to frown on writing that does.

[doozer4200.livejournal.com]

Personally I'm a big fan of the serial comma (which, as per the Wiki entry, I've called "the Harvard comma"). I was taught to write with it. During the torturous college newspaper days, my serial commas disappeared because Associated Press style frowns tremendously upon the serial comma, but here in my Ivy League days, it is back. Although I should really see what the MLA and Chicago folks say about it...

Can I say, I just love that people care? I guess it's fitting that I get to torment the freshman writing kiddies next fall.

[zuleikhajami.livejournal.com]

which I should perhaps take as an extenuating circumstance.

Yes, you should. In general, she's pro-commas, and she acknowledges the US convention. Plus, the book is very fun.

[perbac.livejournal.com]

!

I happened also to pick this up recently (last weekend) and the lack-of-serial-comma'ing also caught my eye. Sigh.

But apparently you're one of those people who puts his periods inside his quote-marks.. whatever it is that that is called (think she even referenced it in one of the 10 pages I've read). Hmph.

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.

[laurion]

Hey, if it's good enough for Oxford (Britain), and Harvard (old enough to be British), it's good enough for me. It's such a small use of ink, and goes very far in the disambiguation of sentence meaning. Optional, perhaps, but practial in the extreme.