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| A comma (not necessarily Oxford) |
One hears a lot of hubbub on the internet about how the Oxford comma is the most important piece of punctuation in the English language, and to neglect it is the equivalent of leaving your dog in the car on a hot day while you go into the corner store to buy cigarettes, which you proceed to smoke in the car with the windows up while your poor pooch cries pitifully on the back seat. A typical polemic against Oxford comma non-use goes like this:
"We invited the rhinoceri, Washington and Lincoln." — THAT MEANS WASHINGTON AND LINCOLN ARE RHINOCERI! YOU CAN'T GET AWAY WITH THIS YOU IGNORANT APE! YOU ARE JOHN WILKES BOOTH REINCARNATED! SIC SEMPER GRAMMARIST! THE PRESIDENTS SHALL BE AVENGED WITH PROPER PUNCTUATION!"
The thing about examples like this is that they are contrived to make the OC look necessary. If you had simply rephrased the sentence (We invited Washington, Lincoln and the rhinoceri) there is no risk of being misunderstood. Furthermore, in 99 percent of sentences there is no possibility of the absent comma leading to this type of misunderstanding.
Example: I want eggs, bacon and toast. YOU WANT BACON AND TOAST TOGETHER... AND ALSO EGGS!?!?!?!? THE HORROR!!! HAVE A SIDE OF GRAMMAR WITH YOUR BREAKFAST YOU MINDLESS SLOUCH!!!! USE A COMMA OR I'LL PUT YOU IN A COMA!!!
I generally don't use the Oxford comma for three reasons:
1. As noted, it almost never adds clarity (other than in sentences that are designed to be misunderstood without it).
2. Despite my flagrant use of all caps in this post, I care about the aesthetic of the texts I produce. By minimizing the number of marks on any given page (i.e. by removing superfluous punctuation) there is an overall cleaner aesthetic.
3. Converting one's thoughts into text so that they are perfectly understood by the reader is a challenge. Conscientiously reworking sentences so there is no possibility of being misunderstood is a skill, and organizing lists so they can't be misunderstood, with or without useless commas, is a chance to work on that skill.
You may have noticed that I said I generally don't use the OC. This reflects a flexible approach to grammar that I think is under-appreciated by high-school English teachers and internet trolls alike. Grammar, like language itself, wasn't given from on high. It was created by humans over thousands of years. Modern linguists tend to describe language as it is used rather than prescribing 'proper' language use. Grammar exists for our benefit. It exists to make written language clear and understandable, not to constrain our ability to express ourselves or to cause endless online shouting matches. I'm not saying you should do one thing or the other. Use the OC if the sentence can't be organized any other way and will be misunderstood without it. Don't use it if the list is perfectly understandable the way it is. You'll be saving on ink! Or just use it. I don't care. Do what works for you. But in my opinion the Oxford comma is overrated, unnecessary and superfluous.
You are history's greatest monster.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what is with the high-school English teacher shade, Mr. Robertshaw (if that IS your real name)?
As for the aesthetic of the text... you are quite simply wrong. WRONG, I say. The longer I read without seeing a mark of punctuation, the further the existential dread creeps.
More than anything, this blog posts emphasizes how profoundly our own lens—with which we perceive the world—poisons our perspective. In what world is there an ever-present snobbery about oxford commas? Most people don't even know what an oxford comma is! You don't need to call for its death, Mr. Robertshaw, the oxford comma is already infirmed.
Oh, and "use a comma or I'll put you in a coma" is hilarious.
DeleteHi spman2099 (if that IS your real name!). Thanks for your comment. We at Successive Failures take our patrons' satisfaction seriously. I will address each of your concerns in turn.
Delete1. History's greatest monster was actually Vidkun Quisling and that's a fact. (Trust me. I have 1/6 of a PhD in History).
2. I actually liked most of my high-school English teachers. They let me read Animal Farm and once I wrote an essay about why I might take up nomadic goat herding. It wasn't a very good essay (Oxford commas galore), but they believed in me and helped me become the man I am today (which, so I'm told, is history's greatest monster, but that's up for debate). And my name is indeed Robertshaw, but you can call me Matt or Robot-shaw or Comma Chameleon. I don't mind.
3. You're confusing aesthetics with dopamine. Just because something is aesthetically pleasing doesn't mean it is comfortable. You wouldn't sleep on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. Things can be beautiful but still cause existential dread (otherwise there would be no Russian Literature). In any case, I was referring to the aesthetic of a page of text as a whole, not the sense you get while you're reading it. Less marks on a page means a cleaner aesthetic. It's the same reason I tirelessly rework paragraphs just to keep footnotes or section headings in an appropriate position. It just looks nicer. If any part of my post should give you existential dread it's the bit where I flirted with the end of grammar as a whole.
4. How can a lens poison something? That's a mixed metaphor. I expect better from you, spman. I thought we were friends. Seriously though, you're right. It's all academic and elitist to even have this conversation. That's why I went all populist pluralist at the end and said 'do as you wish, see if I care.' My contention wasn't that everybody and their sister has an opinion about the OC. It was that the OC seems to be the only piece of punctuation that people get riled up about, and once someone learns to identify it by name they feel compelled to defend it. Why is no one fighting over the em dash? Why is there no Society to Rename the Colon (SRC)? Doeſn't anyone care about the demiſe of the long s? I guess I'll just never understand why people are so angry, obstinate and passionate about this particular piece of punctuation. (Sorry if I caused you any anxiety in that last sentence. I'll, just, do, this, from, now, on, okay?)
All the best,
(1/6th of a) Dr. Robotshaw
How dare you call my proud heritage into question! The Spman2099s built this damn country! And I will have you know that we built it with commas.
DeleteA page bereft of punctuation marks is like staring at a white wall. It is ugly in its simplicity. Embrace the comma, man. As Shakespeare once said... "Brevity is the worst, but Oxford commas are pretty rad."
As for the poisonous lens... Uh... There can be abrasions in the eye... If you, like, poisoned a contact lens, that would easily cause harm... Right?
...
I'LL MIX YOUR METAPHOR, ROBERTSHAW!
P.S. How do you feel about the ellipsis?
As a historian, I can't live without the ellipsis. How else would I truncate long and meandering quotes from primary sources? Ellipses are necessary for taking out the unnecessaries. Hey! Maybe I should start using ellipses when quoting sources that use Oxford commas! "The president called for order, civility [...] and cooperation." Much better!
ReplyDeleteSaw this somewhere. Pretty well sums up my stance: "Follow one of the conventions, and stick to it throughout your document. However, if you write something ambiguous, try to reword your sentence. If that proves too cumbersome, have the confidence to switch conventions in the same document. Above all, remember this:
ReplyDeleteClarity trumps both conventions."