Day: October 11, 2011

On Tonight’s Debate

Dear Julianna Goldman: “Hypothetical” – look it up in a dictionary. “A majority of people believing” that something will come to pass does not make it any less a hypothesis.

Dear Mitt Romney: Answer a damn question. Any of them. Just one. Please?

Dear Hermain Cain: Stop saying “999.” It really does sound like a pizza box. Also, trying to follow the drinking game is way too hard on my liver.

Dear Rick Santorum: Stop saying war. People don’t like war. Especially with China. Didn’t you see Red Dawn? It’s like that, but there’s a BILLION of them.

Dear Michelle Bachmann: Stop saying anything. Seriously. Just stop.

Dear Ron Paul: Ask more questions, please. I think you just killed Cain’s candidacy with those doozies.

Dear Rick Perry: Don’t forget your Xanax next time.

Dear Newt Gingrich: You’ll make a great Vice President.

And that’s everyone. Huh? Jon who? No, I’m pretty sure that was all of them.

Quote of the night goes to Herman Cain:

“The problem with that analysis is that it’s incorrect.”

The Oxford Comma

Apparently, Oxford decided to update its style guide in 2009 to get rid of the “Oxford comma,” also known as the “serial comma,” for reasons not entirely clear. For those of you who aren’t English majors or grammar geeks (and do not have mothers that are), the Oxford comma is present in the first example, but not the second:

I invited John, James, and Harry.

I invited John, James and Harry.

I’ve always used the Oxford comma, though I don’t think I ever called it that until recently. It was taught to me as the proper way to build a sentence back when I was probably around six years old, and its use by nearly every author I’ve read only serves to further cement its “correctness” in my head – regardless of what Oxford’s style guide says. As a result, this change seems both arbitrary and not particularly useful – which begs the question, why was the change made at all?

My theory: the British just love to make rules.

I’m not entirely sure why I’m writing a blog post about this, as a matter of fact, except perhaps as a result of a chat conversation earlier between a friend and I. Well, that, and it gives me an excuse to post this: Continue reading The Oxford Comma