Oxford comma in the news.
Tangent: dealt with a bowed-up attorney last week who sent an 8 page objection letter to a revised title commitment. Seriously, 8 pages of: "Item 10qqq does not ****effect**** the subject tract and should be removed."
Well, for one thing, the old boy was dead wrong about what did and didn't AFFECT the tract his client wanted to buy (without the benefit of a post-2002 survey, btw, for a $2mil tract). Second thing is that he backed down a bit for some reason when in my reply I capitalized the correct spelling of the word in every last response to his erroneous interpretations.
I never used the Oxford comma or serial comma until a few ago when I was criticized by our 6th grader about it.
I don't think that I was taught to use it. But I may have been in a daydream when it was taught many decades past.
I thought it was superfluous and debated our middle schooler. I lost and I started using it. Lil' grammar nazi had good arguments.
As the old saying goes, commas matter.
There is a big difference between following when phrased with or without a comma:
Let's eat Grandma
Let's eat, Grandma
Grammar and punctuation are important to some folks. Others, apparently not so much. As predicted by Miss Holcomb, my second grade phonics teacher, the decline of Western Civilization can be directly attributed to those of us in her class that didn't heed her cries. Communication by the written word has been in constant flux and metamorphosis since Ugg scratched a line on the wall of his cave and tried to get everyone to understand the line represented a guttural sound. I'm sure he was accepted by his contemporaries just as well as Miss Holcomb was by her class back in 1958.
Miss Holcomb would probably roll over in her grave nowadays with the way folks throw verbiage around like French fries in a food fight. But as long as the idea and emotion that was intended to be communicate gets accepted and understood by a recipient, it's all good, right?
By genetics I never will be a good rule follower. Rules are for folks and lemmings that can't think for themselves. And as much as I respected Miss Holcomb, her world is dead and gone. The world now belongs to people who understand perfectly phrases such as CUL8TR. Like I said, as long as the message is understood as it was intended, the expression was successful.
I remember one hard and fast grammatical rule from my elementary school education was avoiding ending a sentence with a preposition. We spent hours learning how to construct sentences "properly" without that deadly preposition as the last word. It has taken sixty years, but those that deal with such matters have finally come to the realization this may be unnecessary with our language today. While ending a sentence with a preposition is a no-no with most Latin based languages; it may be perfectly acceptable in our modern English. Yes, we do cling to some our Latin structural rules, but we regularly place adjectives before a noun, instead of after. I can't say "I read a book good the other day" and expect anyone to understand.
The television columnist Andy Rooney once received a letter from a retired English teacher, Miss Smith, admonishing him for publicly ending a sentence with a preposition. He acknowledged he had inadvertently done so and apologized. In closing he said, "Miss Smith, I apologize for ending a sentence with a preposition, but I just couldn't think of any other word to end it with."
God bless the innovators of our time. 😉
[MEDIA=youtube]5_dlairDbtE[/MEDIA]
paden cash, post: 418891, member: 20 wrote: Grammar and punctuation are important to some folks. Others, apparently not so much. As predicted by Miss Holcomb, my second grade phonics teacher, the decline of Western Civilization can be directly attributed to those of us in her class that didn't heed her cries. Communication by the written word has been in constant flux and metamorphosis since Ugg scratched a line on the wall of his cave and tried to get everyone to understand the line represented a guttural sound. I'm sure he was accepted by his contemporaries just as well as Miss Holcomb was by her class back in 1958.
Miss Holcomb would probably roll over in her grave nowadays with the way folks throw verbiage around like French fries in a food fight. But as long as the idea and emotion that was intended to be communicate gets accepted and understood by a recipient, it's all good, right?
By genetics I never will be a good rule follower. Rules are for folks and lemmings that can't think for themselves. And as much as I respected Miss Holcomb, her world is dead and gone. The world now belongs to people who understand perfectly phrases such as CUL8TR. Like I said, as long as the message is understood as it was intended, the expression was successful.
I remember one hard and fast grammatical rule from my elementary school education was avoiding ending a sentence with a preposition. We spent hours learning how to construct sentences "properly" without that deadly preposition as the last word. It has taken sixty years, but those that deal with such matters have finally come to the realization this may be unnecessary with our language today. While ending a sentence with a preposition is a no-no with most Latin based languages; it may be perfectly acceptable in our modern English. Yes, we do cling to some our Latin structural rules, but we regularly place adjectives before a noun, instead of after. I can't say "I read a book good the other day" and expect anyone to understand.
The television columnist Andy Rooney once received a letter from a retired English teacher, Miss Smith, admonishing him for publicly ending a sentence with a preposition. He acknowledged he had inadvertently done so and apologized. In closing he said, "Miss Smith, I apologize for ending a sentence with a preposition, but I just couldn't think of any other word to end it with."
God bless the innovators of our time. 😉
Some rules are simple.
Others lend themselves to individual interpretations that cause confusion.
For an analogy, street signs are fairly easy to understand.
Stop signs mean stop. But sometimes uncertainty ensues at a 4-way stop street. I was instructed to yield to the car on the right.
The rule worked fine where I learned to drive. Down here, there seems to be no rule. First arrived, ladies first, blondes, elderly, car who stopped further into the intersection, etc.
Everyone one lurching forward or rolling while waving or some other hand gestures.
I don't buy into text-speak or emoticon stuff but it is hard to avoid because of the pervasiveness of the usage.
Same thoughts when I see vanity plates on cars that are cryptic.
As far as the serial comma. It is not a big deal but in the linked court case it was a problem. Lawyers are casting in on it.
I just hope the world doesn't blow up because imbeciles text,tweet,or post some inappropriate innovative nonsense.
Robert Hill, post: 418925, member: 378 wrote: ...As far as the serial comma. It is not a big deal but in the linked court case it was a problem. Lawyers are casting in on it.
I just hope the world doesn't blow up because imbeciles text,tweet,or post some inappropriate innovative nonsense.
The serial comma article was not only interesting but probably relevant. I'm sure if some of my certs or reports were ever to fall under the scrutiny of grammar police (or worse, trial lawyers) it would be the end of my career.
Probably like most of us I merely say what I mean...;)
Robert Hill, post: 418925, member: 378 wrote:
For an analogy, street signs are fairly easy to understand.
Stop signs mean stop. But sometimes uncertainty ensues at a 4-way stop street. I was instructed to yield to the car on the right.
The rule worked fine where I learned to drive. Down here, there seems to be no rule. First arrived, ladies first, blondes, elderly, car who stopped further into the intersection, etc.
From time to time, I get reminded of an episode of "Becker" with Ted Danson a number of years ago.
The primary character failed his driving test in NYC. Could not find an answer he was happy with to the question "who goes first at a 4 way stop?" When the clerk asked the question at the counter, the response was "the person with the gun". Test passed.
The rule about never ending a sentence with a preposition descended from Latin, where you cannot end with a preposition because of the sentence structure. We've been stuck with it ever since and as you know can lead to convoluted structure to avoid the stricture. Ha!
This is mere pedantry, up with which I will not put!
an old joke...
Cajun was visiting Harvard and he stopped a student and asked "Where the library was at?"
Student sneered and then replied in a snooty Ivy League accent," at Harvard, one doesn't end a sentence with a preposition".
"OK" replied the Cajun, "Where's the library at, a##hole"
