Grammar Interlude #1

I hate Oxford commas with a fiery passion, and I couldn't begin to tell you why.

Generally, I'm a liberal user of punctuation. I'd usually rather have too many commas than not enough. Still, something about the Oxford comma bothers me. I think it's so ugly, so unnecessary.

Some of you probably haven't the slightest clue as to what I'm talking about. I'll explain. In the following italicized sentence includes a series of three, and, as much as it's going to hurt, I will use an Oxford comma:

I like apples, bananas, and oranges.

The second comma, the one after bananas, is an Oxford comma. I have literally come to blows with someone based on its usage rules.

See, the thing is that the Oxford comma is totally optional. Technically, there's nothing wrong with using it, but there's also nothing wrong with leaving it out.

Let's think about this for a moment.... The word "and," as a conjunction, provides the pause needed in the aforementioned series. Why, then, should we double the pause? It's completely unnecessary to define that understood pause.

Now, let's look at a time when both a conjunction and a comma are used:

I love singing, and I couldn't live without it.

Is it not true that in the absence of the second "I" in that sentence, the comma would be incorrect? When joining an independent clause and a dependent one, a comma isn't needed if you have a conjunction. If you are given two independent clauses, like in the example above, you need more than a comma can provide. You can either add a conjunction or use a semicolon or dash instead.

What does all of this have to do with my hatred of the Oxford comma? Plenty, I've noticed. You see, in the first example above, all of the items in that series are entirely dependent. Without the rest of the sentence, "banana" means nothing. Therefore, since "and" is being used as a conjunction, the Oxford comma is obsolete.

Damn, it feels good to be a gangsta.

e e cummings

I admit it--I love this man with all of my heart and soul. He embodies all things beautiful in the English language. Unlike most English lovers, I am an advocate for grammar experimentation, particularly through punctuation, much like that for which my friend Edward Estlin is often acknowledged. Here are a few of my favourite bits from his poems:

* and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it's
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful

* every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy

* what's beyond logic happens beneath will;
nor can these moments be translated: i say
that even after April
by God there is no excuse for May

* why then to Hell with that: the other; this,
since the thing perhaps is
to eat flowers and not to be afraid

* since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things

* for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

* down above all with love
and everything perverse
or which makes some feel more better
when all ought to feel less worse

* may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know

* I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance

* deeds cannot dream what dreams can do

* eyes
know if a
lit tle
tree listens

* i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

That's just the ones I have on me. God, his words and his lack of words are just...utter bliss.