Punctuation has been defined many ways. Some grammarians use the analogy of stitching: punctuation as the basting that holds the fabric in shape. But best of all, I think, is the simple advice given by the style book of a national newspaper: that punctuation is “a courtesy designed to help readers to understand a story without stumbling.”
- Lynne Truss
There’s something which I feel strongly about and have been wondering for sometime why Time Magazine has altogether dropped it.
Kate L. Turabian (A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed., 1996) instructs that “In a series consisting of three or more elements, the elements are separated by commas. When a conjunction joins the last two elements, a comma is used before the conjunction.”
William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White (The Elements of Style, 6th ed., 2000) call such comma used before the conjunction as the “serial comma”. They similarly advise, “in a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last”.
Thus, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” would read as “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves” following Turabian and Strunk and White (the serial comma is the comma after “Shoots”).
Something must have happened between my last English class and today because I no longer see the serial comma except in the documents I originate and those which pass through my obsessive-compulsive hands.
Lynne Truss, thankfully, has not only provided an explanation of the seeming disappearance of the serial comma (which she calls the Oxford comma) but has likewise given me a tap-tap on the head why I should ease up. She clarifies that, “In Britain, where standard usage is to leave it out, there are those who put it in – including, interestingly, Fowler’s Modern English Usage. In America, conversely, where standard usage is to leave it in, there are those who make it a point of removing it (especially journalists)”. Truss explains that her own feeling is that “one shouldn’t be too rigid about the Oxford comma. Sometimes the sentence is improved by including it; sometimes it isn’t.”
“Eats, Shoots and Leaves” is a snazzy, witty, and stylish instruction book on punctuation elucidating, entertaining, and flabbergasting its readers in a most delightful way (oh how I love that Oxford comma).
- Lynne Truss
There’s something which I feel strongly about and have been wondering for sometime why Time Magazine has altogether dropped it.
Kate L. Turabian (A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed., 1996) instructs that “In a series consisting of three or more elements, the elements are separated by commas. When a conjunction joins the last two elements, a comma is used before the conjunction.”
William Strunk, Jr. and E.B. White (The Elements of Style, 6th ed., 2000) call such comma used before the conjunction as the “serial comma”. They similarly advise, “in a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last”.
Thus, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” would read as “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves” following Turabian and Strunk and White (the serial comma is the comma after “Shoots”).
Something must have happened between my last English class and today because I no longer see the serial comma except in the documents I originate and those which pass through my obsessive-compulsive hands.
Lynne Truss, thankfully, has not only provided an explanation of the seeming disappearance of the serial comma (which she calls the Oxford comma) but has likewise given me a tap-tap on the head why I should ease up. She clarifies that, “In Britain, where standard usage is to leave it out, there are those who put it in – including, interestingly, Fowler’s Modern English Usage. In America, conversely, where standard usage is to leave it in, there are those who make it a point of removing it (especially journalists)”. Truss explains that her own feeling is that “one shouldn’t be too rigid about the Oxford comma. Sometimes the sentence is improved by including it; sometimes it isn’t.”
“Eats, Shoots and Leaves” is a snazzy, witty, and stylish instruction book on punctuation elucidating, entertaining, and flabbergasting its readers in a most delightful way (oh how I love that Oxford comma).
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