17 ms·

Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.

418 points by hachiya 12y ago

feefie 12y ago
I support the use of the Oxford comma because I love my parents, Cher and the Pope.
saurik 12y ago
> An Oxford comma is not a flip switch in an author's voice, it's a decision made in the moment to maintain the flow of the idea. I am more than happy to truly believe this premise (and if you read some of the things I write, and how I use punctuation, I hope the reader will agree ;P), and can come up with situations where the extra comma "breaks the rythm" and cases where it "makes the sentence". > Momentum, syncopation, rhythm and pattern make a sentence flow, because writers are trying to transfer the voices in their heads into yours. However, I simply can't bring myself to read this without speaking "rythm, and pattern": the sentence is expertly crafted and frankly sounds amazing; but, if I accept the author's premise that he really and truly carefully decided to not put a comma there because he didnt want me to pause, the sentence sounds horrible: in fact, this sentence sounds pretty un-lyrical to me unless I also add a pause--yes, not one but two added commas--after "pattern", at which point I would say it sounds downright powerful; I could, alternatively, appreciate a smaller pause between "momentum" and "syncopation", which would form a grouping that I think almost sounds even better? (though which I have a difficult time "performing"), but then we have to give up the first comma as well: "momentum/syncopation, rythm and pattern, are"... I really would love to hear the author read this sentence of the article out loud.
- lmkg 12y ago
  Without the commas, it sounds to me like the author is excited and animated about his topic, tumbling forward. I imagine him gesticulating wildly. I guess you were imagining more of a measured pronouncement, with paused emphasis to cause us to carefully consider each element. As he says, the punctuation imparts different styles. I think the tumbling-forward interpretation works better with the list having four elements. They're meant to be a cumulative item, making his point as much by the number of different elements as by the meaning of each individual one. This style works better when it gives the impression of rushing.
  - YokoZar 12y ago
    I've read that sentence a few times now both imposing and not imposing the imaginary comma in my head and it still sounds like either a mistake or a particularly weird choice of rhythm. Without an oxford comma, a four letter list sounds like "This...that...c and d do that!" -- which in turn sounds like naming two things, then making a completely different sentence about the final two things. People don't talk that way out loud when they mean to include the first two items in the list.
    - SheepSlapper 12y ago
      I love the Oxford comma, because it leaves no room for ambiguity. I've heard anecdotes of people omitting the comma in contracts and having it come back to bite them in the butt... but who knows if there's any truth in them or not.
      - andolanra 12y ago
        Except that the Oxford comma does leave room for ambiguity, c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_comma#Creating_ambiguity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_comma#Creating_ambiguity Frankly, with writing in natural languages, hard-and-fast rules like, "Oxford Comma are always unambiguous," and, "Always avoid passives," tend to make your writing weaker, because there are still some cases in which Oxford Commas are ambiguous and passives are the right tool for the job. What makes great writing, whether it be creative writing or contract writing or what-have-you, is knowing when to apply such rules and when to disregard them.
        SheepSlapper 12y ago
        From Wikipedia: "Without a serial comma, the above dedication would read... a phrase ambiguous only if the reader accepts the interpretation..." In this case the serial comma isn't creating any ambiguity, the bad writing is (and the serial comma shifts the ambiguity to the second/third item being listed). When they suggest a better way to write the example sentence, it uses the Oxford comma both times (though I'd argue that the second sentence isn't a solution). I agree that nothing is ever absolute (hah), but the Oxford comma takes care of ambiguities most of the time, and merely shifts the ambiguity around when appositive phrases are thrown into the mix. And reducing ambiguity should be the goal of every writer.
- redwood 12y ago
  I read it as "rhythm AND pattern", e.g a more excited voice. A nice notion
- lisper 12y ago
  The Right Way (IMHO): Momentum, syncopation, rhythm-and-pattern: these make a sentence flow, because...
  - tinco 12y ago
    or perhaps: explanation-for ((make-sentence-flow) (momentum, syncopation, rhythm-and-pattern)) (...)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- mpyne 12y ago
  > > Momentum, syncopation, rhythm and pattern make a sentence flow > However, I simply can't bring myself to read this without speaking "rythm, and pattern": the sentence is expertly crafted and frankly sounds amazing; but, if I accept the author's premise that he really and truly carefully decided to not put a comma there because he didnt want me to pause, the sentence sounds horrible I think the author's sentence (and intended flow) was very clear. I've tried to solve the same problem in a different way though, by using '&' where I want a conjuction to join two words instead of parts of a sentence or list. E.g. "Momentum, syncopation, rhythm & pattern make a sentence flow". This is arguably much worse, especially if you're not normally having to read ampersands (which would cause a stall reading the sentence), but it also seems to ensure less complaints from the Oxford comma pedants.
- dedward 12y ago
  To your second point - I wondered about it to - as logically I think like you do here. Interestingly, though, when I read this the first time, I thought that last comma was there. It was only when I checked again that I realized it was not. The pause is very natural and normal - but the comma seems unimportant for practical purposes.
kyberias 12y ago
Footnote number 2 is absolutely priceless.
- Gracana 12y ago
  Footnote number two made me think this guy is awfully self-righteous and obnoxious, and the weird defense of his beloved English teacher made me kind of uncomfortable.
deleted 12y ago
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cinfinity 12y ago
Stopped reading after footnote 2.
- bencoder 12y ago
  Your comment would contribute much more to the discussion if you explained why.
- gkya 12y ago
  I'd suggest to continue on to footnote 3 if you plan to use footnotes in your writing, though :)
- Natsu 12y ago
  Almost missed being able to read that because I couldn't see them due to having JavaScript off.
- cpt1138 12y ago
  I did too. Couldn't figure out why that was even in there. It seemed so ludicrously out of place but so intentional.
  - bsilvereagle 12y ago
    It reinforced the point of the whole essay.
    - lhgaghl 12y ago
      What? How so? (And what was the point of the article? That English isn't math?)
  - ajkjk 12y ago
    I found it very entertaining. And humanizing of the writer - it shouted "hey, look, this isn't your usual rant on punctuation" early on in the piece, before the writing style had had time to otherwise distinguish itself from the hundreds of other articles we've read on stuff like this. Like some weird kind of foreshadowing.
steve_benjamins 12y ago
Loved his points about how you can hear punctuation in speech: "Morgan Freeman is liberal with the commas, and Jon Stewart is a master of parentheses. Lewis Black made a career out of the exclamation point while Dennis Leary barely uses any punctuation at all." Overall, a great Sunday morning read.
- Istof 12y ago
  it's a good point, but isn't that the point of punctuation?
  - YokoZar 12y ago
    A period is a good point.
- jonemo 12y ago
  This was also my favorite sentence of the piece. People sometimes criticize my writing as having to many parentheses. From now on I will just tell them to read it in the voice of Jon Stewart. Because that's exactly how I want all my texts to be read.
js2 12y ago
In this case, em dashes are doing something similar to a pair of commas, which can also denote side info but they do it more casually, and parentheses. "and parentheses" what? And they are also like em dashes? Edit: Thank you for the explanation folks. For whatever reason I found the use of commas to denote the aside very difficult to parse. I think maybe it's because of the first comma after "In this case."
- bencoder 12y ago
  try: > In this case, em dashes are doing something similar to a pair of commas (which can also denote side info but they do it more casually) and parentheses. The commas after "pair of commas" are the parenthetical commas he is describing
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - pests 12y ago
    I would have shown the example with em dashes instead of parentheses as that was the point of the sentence.
- maxerickson 12y ago
  It's about a 3 way similarity between em dashes, comma pairs and parentheses. (if they didn't share the similarity I guess 'or' would fit better)
- arjie 12y ago
  Funny. Not a great sentence. By the time you reach the end, you've forgotten where you were. The aside, consisting of two sentences with a conjunction, is too long. I suspect the conjunction is the problem.
- Xurinos 12y ago
  This sentence really clued me into my problem with the essay. As I read it, I found myself tripping over the sentences, especially this one. I had to reread it in order to understand what the author was saying. Today's punctuation rules may have awkward beginnings, but the rules are standard, familiar, and subconsciously expected. This actually improves the speed at which I can read. The author's style had several places that were difficult for me because I have been mentally trained on one set of road signs and meanings.
dilap 12y ago
Only tangentially related, but it's the weekend, so what the hell, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g
- notduncansmith 12y ago
  Knew it before I even clicked the link. They've gone a bit downhill since their first album, but the first (on which this song appears) is a classic.
  - nightpool 12y ago
    Are you kidding me? I can pick 3 songs off of Modern Vamps that are better then the whole first album combined. I would admit Contra is a little bit of a hit and miss album, but not incredibly more so then the first one. I mean, who actually listens to I Stand Corrected? Or M79? And Contra gave us Giving Up The Gun, which is probably the second best VW song ever. (The three songs by the way, if there was any doubt, would be "Hannah Hunt", "Diane Young" and "Hudson" or "Step" depending on taste)
- tim333 12y ago
  Even more tangential but amusing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4qii8S3gw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4qii8S3gw (Borge, Phonetic Pronunciation)
- tokipin 12y ago
  i need to add some pop here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94ii6MVilw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94ii6MVilw
lambda 12y ago
Ouch. Fairly nicely written piece about punctuation, and generally nicely formatted with justification, properly indented paragraphs, use of em dashes, and so on; and then it uses straight quotes everywhere. While I'm generally used to straight quotes everywhere on the web, the additional standard set by the rest of the typesetting and the topic meant that their omission here was that much more glaring.
- Bud 12y ago
  The piece also asserted that "word" and "whirred" are "pronounced exactly the same". They aren't. The first consonant is different; IPA [w] vs. IPA [hw].
  - talideon 12y ago
    In a good number of English dialects [w] and [hw] have collapsed together.
    - groovy2shoes 12y ago
      Yep, to the point of /hw/ being considered comical by many speakers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_wh#Wine.E2.80.93whine_merger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_wh#Wine... Edit: I just want to point out that despite what the map in the linked article says, the merger is complete in most of the urban areas in the Southeast as well. You'll usually only hear /hw/ in rural areas.
  - punee 12y ago
    OTOH, that "wh" is pronounced /hw/ only reinforces his main argument.
  - aninhumer 12y ago
    For me, it's the same consonant, but the vowel sound is very slightly longer in "whirred".
- auxbuss 12y ago
  "use of em dashes" It's worth pointing out that this is not a universal style choice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash
marmarlade 12y ago
I was never taught about the Oxford Comma (I'm not a native speaker), but trained myself to use it consistently after seeing this http://jaced.com/blogpix/2013/washingtonlincolnoxford.jpg http://jaced.com/blogpix/2013/washingtonlincolnoxford.jpg. This has made me rethink though - he makes a great point that writing is about transferring the voices in my head into the readers', so I'll keep that in mind for any creative writing. Heck, not just creative writing, I can think of more than one occasion where I put an Oxford Comma in a press release even though it read better to me without. Thanks for sharing!
- eCa 12y ago
  Consider though: To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God [1] Is the writer's mother Ayn Rand? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_comma#Creating_ambiguity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_comma#Creating_ambiguity
  - sesqu 12y ago
    To my mother Ayn Rand, and to God Not the same wording, but that's how I would write it, given the freedom.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - psutor 12y ago
    For clarity in this case, you would distribute the "to" if the writer's mother is indeed Ayn Rand: To my mother, Ayn Rand, and to God and otherwise assume not (or completely distribute the "to" for no ambiguity). EDIT: My sibling post has another good alternative.
    - vorg 12y ago
      Of course we only need to add to in writing. When speaking this we'd pause before and after "Ayn Rand", which we'd say in a lower hohum-style intonation.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
chasing 12y ago
Grammar and punctuation are usability tools. The writer is allowed to use the whole set of characters, punctuation, and symbols to express himself or herself. There's no law against title my next piece of writing: "Gsfbvsrnbwrkng!#$#jkgfbfart." (And I believe this is, in fact, taught in high schools. It was to me, at least: Our literature textbooks seemed to always include works by e e cummings, for example.) But we have this set of recommendations for writing in the English language that maximizes clarity and comfort when reading. Many high school students don't care about writing. Either they find it boring or don't understand why it's useful or are intimidated by books or something else entirely. So sometimes rules just have to be pounded into them. And anyone complaining about the quality of public education in the United States, before you get down on teachers, go take a look at what people get paid and what resources are provided to teachers. Especially in poorer parts of the country. We're getting what we pay for.
js2 12y ago
The English teacher beginning his lesson with "So." reminded me of this piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/22iht-currents.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/22iht-currents.html (SO this is about the word “so.”)
mcclosdl 12y ago
> Momentum, syncopation, rhythm and pattern make a sentence flow, because writers are trying to transfer the voices in their heads into yours. Had to read this several times because the horrible punctuation made the sentence unreadable without thinking.
billpollock 12y ago
Punctuation is about rhythm. Writing is about communication. And I start sentences with "and" all the time. I hardly know my grammar rules and I don't care. But I do care about making sure that writing is clear. That's the basic rule I've applied to the hundreds of books that I've edited. Oxford comma. Huh?
- phillijw 12y ago
  This is how I do it too. Rules are only rules because someone said so.
afarrell 12y ago
Half the time when I hear Barack Obama speak, I imagine his speechwriter typing out ", and this nation cannot afford that<period><tab><tab><tab>So I have been..." For every damn sentence.
cliveowen 12y ago
In every case where you have to decide between two options and both have advantages and disadvantages you should go with the popular one. In the case of the Oxford comma this means following what most of the world (including the publishing world) does and avoid it. The grammar of many languages forbids the Oxford comma, so there's no reason to keep this controversy going on with no real purpose.
Stratoscope 12y ago
Most of the time, you can use the Oxford comma, the non-Oxford comma or any other kind of comma, and it just doesn't make any difference. But sometimes you need it. Here's an example: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things, cache expiration, and off-by-one errors." Take out the comma and you ruin the joke - at least to my ears: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things, cache expiration and off-by-one errors."
- nightpool 12y ago
  The author addresses this: "contrived sentences that mean different things depending on the placement of commas, because this tactic was so successful in fixing that thing that time."
  - ghaff 12y ago
    Yes but contrived sentences are bad examples. If you have to carefully parse a sentence's punctuation to come to the correct meaning, the sentence should be rewritten. (Analogous to forcing code maintainers to remember obscure precedence rules to understand your code.)
    - nightpool 12y ago
      I'm not sure what you're point is, becauae on first read it looks like you're agreeing with me? The whole point of the quote was that contrived sentences aren't good examples.
      - ghaff 12y ago
        The point I took from that quote was that many punctuation rules come about to address difficult to parse situations. My point is that, if it's a difficult to parse situation, you should probably rewrite it in some way so that punctuation isn't so critical to understanding.
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
    The author conveniently dismisses sentences that contradict his premise as "contrived." That's not addressing anything, it's just employing the No True Scotsman trick.
Camillo 12y ago
The problem is that many people have horrible rhythm when speaking, too. Telling them to just transfer that on the page results in horrible punctuation.
johnchristopher 12y ago
This is really nice to have footnotes just next to the line there are called from[0]. I rarely stumble upon a web page that actually improves on the paper format but this one does. [0] There must be a better way to phrase this.
- jdhzzz 12y ago
  Completely agree. I first saw this on the Grantland.com site. I loved it the moment I first came across it there.
- aclements18 12y ago
  Very much agree. Much more natural way to get additional information. I really like how Livefyre is doing something similar with Sidenotes: http://web.livefyre.com/streamhub/#liveSidenotes http://web.livefyre.com/streamhub/#liveSidenotes
- Avshalom 12y ago
  Margin notes.
- ams6110 12y ago
  Except they're invisible if you have JS disabled, as I do for normal browsing.
  - Chris_Newton 12y ago
    A similar effect can be achieved using just CSS: float the marginal note left or right, set the width and apply (negative) horizontal margins to move it outside the main text block, and if required use relative positioning to shift it up so the baselines of the body text and the marginal note align.
- andreasvc 12y ago
  Except margin notes are not a web innovation. They are common in textbooks.
- drbawb 12y ago
centro 12y ago
I found this in the source of the page.  Found my new favorite blogger; s'cept for PG.
- Jemaclus 12y ago
  And further down: /* Yeah, there's some shitty code here. There are some things that shouldn't be done. I did them. Sometimes, I had my reasons. Sometimes, I was just being lazy. But guess what? You're sitting there reading the source on some guy's blog. So fuck you. */
- 30thElement 12y ago
  If that's what made him your favorite, you really need to read his earlier post that really blew up in popularity. It's a great read. http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks
  - ssully 12y ago
    That just made my Sunday night. Another perk is it seems friendly enough to show non-programmers, but I dont think they will appreciate it as much.
kbar13 12y ago
Punctuation abuse in Apple ad copy, actually the worst ever.
bsilvereagle 12y ago
> and give the teachers a few things to decorate with smiley faces and Xs This little snippet made it pretty clear to me that the vast majority of my teachers weren't educating, but ticking check-boxes on whether I had fulfilled X,Y, and Z requirements.
archagon 12y ago
Is it just me, or does this guy sound a little like James Mickens, the hilarious Microsoft blogger? http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/12/24/10484402.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/12/24/10484...
Chattered 12y ago
> An Oxford comma is not a flip switch in an author's voice, it's a decision made in the moment to maintain the flow of the idea. This is simply a run-on, not a use of an Oxford comma as I understand it. And these bother me a lot. "An oxford comma is not a flip switch in an author's voice" is a grammatically complete sentence. So is "it's a decision made in the moment to maintain the flow of the idea." Separate them by a strong punctuation mark. If you want the rhythm of a comma, separate them by a semi-colon in preference to a stop. Semi-colons are made for this.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Several people in this thread are claiming that punctuation is used to convey information about how to pronounce the sentence. You're saying (and I tend to agree with you) that written punctuation is about meaning, and not about where a speaker would pause to take a breath. Can these two be kludged into a unified meaning? "Write better so that your written words sound good when spoken"?
  - Chattered 12y ago
    I'm saying that punctuation has already solved this problem with the semi-colon. If you have two sentences where the second follows the other so closely that there is barely a breath in between, use a semi-colon rather than a stop. You convey both meaning and flow at the same time, and you keep the grammaticasters happy.
    - e12e 12y ago
      Ah, I love semicolons -- but they're not always as aesthetic as commas (and vice-versa). I find this is mostly a question of overall style and context (the more pretentious the text, the more out of place the semicolon; unless you're aspiring to be a pretentious (post-)modern text -- then the semicolon wins).
snowwrestler 12y ago
I understand punctuation fine, and I think the author is wrong. While commas in general are not governed by hard rules, the "Oxford comma" is an extremely specific use of the comma: to separate the listing of 3 or more equal items. There's nothing artistic about it; it's exactly the sort of situation that simply needs to be consistent to be readable. No offense to the author, who might be reading this, but it's possible to be too proud of your writing history and cleverness. Many people have had English teachers they loved, and any good writer has had a moment where they realized, or were told, to throw out the rules. It's essential to note that these moments always come in high school or college or later, when kids already have more than a decade of writing instruction under their belts. No one tells a second-grader to throw out all the rules. Because you're not actually supposed to throw them out. It's just a teaching technique to break through bad writing habits.
- qu4z-2 12y ago
  There's a difference between throwing out all the rules, and throwing out merely the useless ones: splitting infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions, and such. Having said that, I'm on-the-fence about consistent Oxford Commaing. The article's suggestion to decide case-by-case is interesting (and the argument is very well written) but I'd have to read a longer piece that alternated to find out whether it bothers me.
- vacri 12y ago
  On a tangent about consistency, I find it amusing when journalists slave themselves to the rules and create silly sentences. The one I'm thinking of is the convention that numbers under 10 are spelled out, and numbers 10 or higher are put in numeral form. Some journalists abandon consistency to stick to the 'rules': "the policy is predicted to have payoffs in eight to 12 years". I think I've even seen it in hyphenated form, too.
  - Terr_ 12y ago
    IMO there's another reason to use alphabetic-vs-numeral amounts: How you expect the audience to use the number. If the numbers are figurative, poetic, or you want the reading-flow uninterrupted, you probably want letters, meaning that Carl Sagan gets quoted as "billions and billions", rather than "1,000,000,000s and 1,000,000,000s". Similarly, "we tried three times", rather than "we tried 3 times". On the other extreme, if you expect people to compare or analyze with numbers as they read them, favor numerals. "A fan favorite, bookies give him odds of 10 to 3."
spasquali 12y ago
!
coherentpony 12y ago
This was a joy to read. I highly recommend reading it out loud to someone. Try the techniques the author mentioned, and laugh out loud when he uses one of the techniques ironically. A wonderfully written piece of art. And excellently communicated, too.
gregoire 12y ago
This article makes me think about a question to which I still haven't found an answer: For me (I'm not a native english speaker by the way), when reading out loud a text, all commas are "translated" by a pause. But there are some sentences for which I don't understand why a comma is used, as I wouldn't pause at the comma when saying these sentences out loud. For example: > The problem is that many people have horrible rhythm when speaking, too. or > Thank you, John. In both these sentences, when reading them out loud, I wouldn't pause where there is a comma. And I actually never heard someone pause at these commas. So am I mistaken in thinking that commas should always be orally translated by pauses? Or do you pause at the comma when saying these sentences?
- snogglethorpe 12y ago
  In your first example, a pause there sounds a little awkward -- but putting a comma there also looks awkward. To my ear it sounds sort of antiquated. In the second example, adding a pause at that location sounds quite natural. It changes the meaning slightly, adding gravity to the statement, making the thank-you sound more heartfelt. [I'm a native English speaker, and the commas-as-pauses way of thinking has always worked very well for me...]
  - gregoire 12y ago
    Thanks! About the first example, it seems to be commonly used: just in this HN thread, the ", too." pattern is used in 3 comments. But just like for you, a pause there sounds weird to me too.
- saraid216 12y ago
  When I see a sentence that ends with ", too", I tend to place a bit more emphasis on the second-to-last word ("speaking", in this case), which ends up adding a pause. So the sentence goes, "The problem is that many people have horrible rhythm while speaking, too." To my taste, the sentence goes on a bit too long: an emphasis probably belongs somewhere in the middle: but perfection is hard to come by. :P
- breadbox 12y ago
mikeklaas 12y ago
Nobody understands typography either. The sin of the article is setting text justified without hyphenation.
shittyanalogy 12y ago
Sure, the oxford comma is not important unless it is disambiguating. But let's go meta and ask, Why do you care so much that people care? It's not like great or even good writers are getting hung up on whether or not to use the oxford comma. It's not like people loose jobs over the oxford comma. Everyone with half a brain knows those rules are guidelines. Just like how you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition at. This post is the long form, literary version of feeding the trolls.
peterashford 12y ago
I enjoyed this essay immensely. I'm a bit of a pedant and a language geek (I have a collection of favourite archaisms!) but my favourite saying about our language is: "English is a juggernaut truck: it goes on regardless" I find it useful to say that to myself when I encounter some of the net's more egregious assaults on the language. It's not an assault, it's the language doing what it does.
- _archon_ 12y ago
  Have you published your list? I, for one, would like to peruse it.
Tloewald 12y ago
As with most art forms, the key is to learn the rules and then how to break them. Caring about minutiae like Oxford commas matters to people who know the rules including many who don't know when to break them, but pedants who cling to rules beyond their point of uselessness don't make the rules not worth understanding.
lhgaghl 12y ago
> If you told Dennis Leary he needed more Oxford commas, I can only hope he'd put a cigarette out in your eye, but I heard he quit smoking. I cringed. What was the point of this article other than wankery?
Flenser 12y ago
> Punctuation started with periods that told the speaker when to take a breath A great book that looks at how punctuation characters date back to ancient greek writing and how it was used to show how text should be read is Shady Characters: Ampersands, Interrobangs and other Typographical Curiosities: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EAA6QHC/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EAA6QHC/ Edit: You can read the first chapter in the preview with pictures of the ancient texts
Schwolop 12y ago
Did I miss a joke right at the end, or was the whole essay demeaned by getting could and couldn't wrong in the final sentence?
- pdpi 12y ago
  I think you did miss a joke, or at least didn't parse the sentence correctly (which probably negates his point in and of itself). After a bit of clean up, it reads "If Yoda could make his point clear, nobody should give a shit about Oxford commas."
  - Schwolop 12y ago
    Ah! I was parsing it as something like "If Yoda could give a shit about Oxford commas, you shouldn't either." Which then lead to thinking it should have said 'couldn't' instead. Cheers
VeejayRampay 12y ago
Ahhh English... The odd ghoti language.
RakshaC 12y ago
On semicolon, this is a good read :http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon
ebspelman 12y ago
If you have an hour and this topic really interests you, I'd recommend David Foster Wallace's essay "Authority and American Usage" - http://wilson.med.harvard.edu/nb204/AuthorityAndAmericanUsage.pdf http://wilson.med.harvard.edu/nb204/AuthorityAndAmericanUsag.... He covers (very fairly and entertainingly, IMO) the major divide between linguistic prescriptivists and descriptivists, and why both camps have a point.

418 points by hachiya 12y ago

I support the use of the Oxford comma because I love my parents, Cher and the Pope.

> An Oxford comma is not a flip switch in an author's voice, it's a decision made in the moment to maintain the flow of the idea. I am more than happy to truly believe this premise (and if you read some of the things I write, and how I use punctuation, I hope the reader will agree ;P), and can come up with situations where the extra comma "breaks the rythm" and cases where it "makes the sentence". > Momentum, syncopation, rhythm and pattern make a sentence flow, because writers are trying to transfer the voices in their heads into yours. However, I simply can't bring myself to read this without speaking "rythm, and pattern": the sentence is expertly crafted and frankly sounds amazing; but, if I accept the author's premise that he really and truly carefully decided to not put a comma there because he didnt want me to pause, the sentence sounds horrible: in fact, this sentence sounds pretty un-lyrical to me unless I also add a pause--yes, not one but two added commas--after "pattern", at which point I would say it sounds downright powerful; I could, alternatively, appreciate a smaller pause between "momentum" and "syncopation", which would form a grouping that I think almost sounds even better? (though which I have a difficult time "performing"), but then we have to give up the first comma as well: "momentum/syncopation, rythm and pattern, are"... I really would love to hear the author read this sentence of the article out loud.

lmkg 12y ago
Without the commas, it sounds to me like the author is excited and animated about his topic, tumbling forward. I imagine him gesticulating wildly. I guess you were imagining more of a measured pronouncement, with paused emphasis to cause us to carefully consider each element. As he says, the punctuation imparts different styles. I think the tumbling-forward interpretation works better with the list having four elements. They're meant to be a cumulative item, making his point as much by the number of different elements as by the meaning of each individual one. This style works better when it gives the impression of rushing.
- YokoZar 12y ago
  I've read that sentence a few times now both imposing and not imposing the imaginary comma in my head and it still sounds like either a mistake or a particularly weird choice of rhythm. Without an oxford comma, a four letter list sounds like "This...that...c and d do that!" -- which in turn sounds like naming two things, then making a completely different sentence about the final two things. People don't talk that way out loud when they mean to include the first two items in the list.
  - SheepSlapper 12y ago
    I love the Oxford comma, because it leaves no room for ambiguity. I've heard anecdotes of people omitting the comma in contracts and having it come back to bite them in the butt... but who knows if there's any truth in them or not.
    - andolanra 12y ago
      Except that the Oxford comma does leave room for ambiguity, c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_comma#Creating_ambiguity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_comma#Creating_ambiguity Frankly, with writing in natural languages, hard-and-fast rules like, "Oxford Comma are always unambiguous," and, "Always avoid passives," tend to make your writing weaker, because there are still some cases in which Oxford Commas are ambiguous and passives are the right tool for the job. What makes great writing, whether it be creative writing or contract writing or what-have-you, is knowing when to apply such rules and when to disregard them.
      - SheepSlapper 12y ago
        From Wikipedia: "Without a serial comma, the above dedication would read... a phrase ambiguous only if the reader accepts the interpretation..." In this case the serial comma isn't creating any ambiguity, the bad writing is (and the serial comma shifts the ambiguity to the second/third item being listed). When they suggest a better way to write the example sentence, it uses the Oxford comma both times (though I'd argue that the second sentence isn't a solution). I agree that nothing is ever absolute (hah), but the Oxford comma takes care of ambiguities most of the time, and merely shifts the ambiguity around when appositive phrases are thrown into the mix. And reducing ambiguity should be the goal of every writer.
redwood 12y ago
I read it as "rhythm AND pattern", e.g a more excited voice. A nice notion
lisper 12y ago
The Right Way (IMHO): Momentum, syncopation, rhythm-and-pattern: these make a sentence flow, because...
- tinco 12y ago
  or perhaps: explanation-for ((make-sentence-flow) (momentum, syncopation, rhythm-and-pattern)) (...)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
mpyne 12y ago
> > Momentum, syncopation, rhythm and pattern make a sentence flow > However, I simply can't bring myself to read this without speaking "rythm, and pattern": the sentence is expertly crafted and frankly sounds amazing; but, if I accept the author's premise that he really and truly carefully decided to not put a comma there because he didnt want me to pause, the sentence sounds horrible I think the author's sentence (and intended flow) was very clear. I've tried to solve the same problem in a different way though, by using '&' where I want a conjuction to join two words instead of parts of a sentence or list. E.g. "Momentum, syncopation, rhythm & pattern make a sentence flow". This is arguably much worse, especially if you're not normally having to read ampersands (which would cause a stall reading the sentence), but it also seems to ensure less complaints from the Oxford comma pedants.
dedward 12y ago
To your second point - I wondered about it to - as logically I think like you do here. Interestingly, though, when I read this the first time, I thought that last comma was there. It was only when I checked again that I realized it was not. The pause is very natural and normal - but the comma seems unimportant for practical purposes.

kyberias 12y ago

Footnote number 2 is absolutely priceless.

Gracana 12y ago
Footnote number two made me think this guy is awfully self-righteous and obnoxious, and the weird defense of his beloved English teacher made me kind of uncomfortable.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

cinfinity 12y ago

Stopped reading after footnote 2.

bencoder 12y ago
Your comment would contribute much more to the discussion if you explained why.
gkya 12y ago
I'd suggest to continue on to footnote 3 if you plan to use footnotes in your writing, though :)
Natsu 12y ago
Almost missed being able to read that because I couldn't see them due to having JavaScript off.
cpt1138 12y ago
I did too. Couldn't figure out why that was even in there. It seemed so ludicrously out of place but so intentional.
- bsilvereagle 12y ago
  It reinforced the point of the whole essay.
  - lhgaghl 12y ago
    What? How so? (And what was the point of the article? That English isn't math?)
- ajkjk 12y ago
  I found it very entertaining. And humanizing of the writer - it shouted "hey, look, this isn't your usual rant on punctuation" early on in the piece, before the writing style had had time to otherwise distinguish itself from the hundreds of other articles we've read on stuff like this. Like some weird kind of foreshadowing.

steve_benjamins 12y ago

Loved his points about how you can hear punctuation in speech: "Morgan Freeman is liberal with the commas, and Jon Stewart is a master of parentheses. Lewis Black made a career out of the exclamation point while Dennis Leary barely uses any punctuation at all." Overall, a great Sunday morning read.

Istof 12y ago
it's a good point, but isn't that the point of punctuation?
- YokoZar 12y ago
  A period is a good point.
jonemo 12y ago
This was also my favorite sentence of the piece. People sometimes criticize my writing as having to many parentheses. From now on I will just tell them to read it in the voice of Jon Stewart. Because that's exactly how I want all my texts to be read.

js2 12y ago

In this case, em dashes are doing something similar to a pair of commas, which can also denote side info but they do it more casually, and parentheses. "and parentheses" what? And they are also like em dashes? Edit: Thank you for the explanation folks. For whatever reason I found the use of commas to denote the aside very difficult to parse. I think maybe it's because of the first comma after "In this case."

bencoder 12y ago
try: > In this case, em dashes are doing something similar to a pair of commas (which can also denote side info but they do it more casually) and parentheses. The commas after "pair of commas" are the parenthetical commas he is describing
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- pests 12y ago
  I would have shown the example with em dashes instead of parentheses as that was the point of the sentence.
maxerickson 12y ago
It's about a 3 way similarity between em dashes, comma pairs and parentheses. (if they didn't share the similarity I guess 'or' would fit better)
arjie 12y ago
Funny. Not a great sentence. By the time you reach the end, you've forgotten where you were. The aside, consisting of two sentences with a conjunction, is too long. I suspect the conjunction is the problem.
Xurinos 12y ago
This sentence really clued me into my problem with the essay. As I read it, I found myself tripping over the sentences, especially this one. I had to reread it in order to understand what the author was saying. Today's punctuation rules may have awkward beginnings, but the rules are standard, familiar, and subconsciously expected. This actually improves the speed at which I can read. The author's style had several places that were difficult for me because I have been mentally trained on one set of road signs and meanings.

dilap 12y ago

Only tangentially related, but it's the weekend, so what the hell, enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g

notduncansmith 12y ago
Knew it before I even clicked the link. They've gone a bit downhill since their first album, but the first (on which this song appears) is a classic.
- nightpool 12y ago
  Are you kidding me? I can pick 3 songs off of Modern Vamps that are better then the whole first album combined. I would admit Contra is a little bit of a hit and miss album, but not incredibly more so then the first one. I mean, who actually listens to I Stand Corrected? Or M79? And Contra gave us Giving Up The Gun, which is probably the second best VW song ever. (The three songs by the way, if there was any doubt, would be "Hannah Hunt", "Diane Young" and "Hudson" or "Step" depending on taste)
tim333 12y ago
Even more tangential but amusing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4qii8S3gw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lF4qii8S3gw (Borge, Phonetic Pronunciation)
tokipin 12y ago
i need to add some pop here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94ii6MVilw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M94ii6MVilw

lambda 12y ago

Ouch. Fairly nicely written piece about punctuation, and generally nicely formatted with justification, properly indented paragraphs, use of em dashes, and so on; and then it uses straight quotes everywhere. While I'm generally used to straight quotes everywhere on the web, the additional standard set by the rest of the typesetting and the topic meant that their omission here was that much more glaring.

Bud 12y ago
The piece also asserted that "word" and "whirred" are "pronounced exactly the same". They aren't. The first consonant is different; IPA [w] vs. IPA [hw].
- talideon 12y ago
  In a good number of English dialects [w] and [hw] have collapsed together.
  - groovy2shoes 12y ago
    Yep, to the point of /hw/ being considered comical by many speakers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_wh#Wine.E2.80.93whine_merger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_wh#Wine... Edit: I just want to point out that despite what the map in the linked article says, the merger is complete in most of the urban areas in the Southeast as well. You'll usually only hear /hw/ in rural areas.
- punee 12y ago
  OTOH, that "wh" is pronounced /hw/ only reinforces his main argument.
- aninhumer 12y ago
  For me, it's the same consonant, but the vowel sound is very slightly longer in "whirred".
auxbuss 12y ago
"use of em dashes" It's worth pointing out that this is not a universal style choice. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash

marmarlade 12y ago

I was never taught about the Oxford Comma (I'm not a native speaker), but trained myself to use it consistently after seeing this http://jaced.com/blogpix/2013/washingtonlincolnoxford.jpg http://jaced.com/blogpix/2013/washingtonlincolnoxford.jpg. This has made me rethink though - he makes a great point that writing is about transferring the voices in my head into the readers', so I'll keep that in mind for any creative writing. Heck, not just creative writing, I can think of more than one occasion where I put an Oxford Comma in a press release even though it read better to me without. Thanks for sharing!

eCa 12y ago
Consider though: To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God [1] Is the writer's mother Ayn Rand? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_comma#Creating_ambiguity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_comma#Creating_ambiguity
- sesqu 12y ago
  To my mother Ayn Rand, and to God Not the same wording, but that's how I would write it, given the freedom.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- psutor 12y ago
  For clarity in this case, you would distribute the "to" if the writer's mother is indeed Ayn Rand: To my mother, Ayn Rand, and to God and otherwise assume not (or completely distribute the "to" for no ambiguity). EDIT: My sibling post has another good alternative.
  - vorg 12y ago
    Of course we only need to add to in writing. When speaking this we'd pause before and after "Ayn Rand", which we'd say in a lower hohum-style intonation.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

chasing 12y ago

Grammar and punctuation are usability tools. The writer is allowed to use the whole set of characters, punctuation, and symbols to express himself or herself. There's no law against title my next piece of writing: "Gsfbvsrnbwrkng!#$#jkgfbfart." (And I believe this is, in fact, taught in high schools. It was to me, at least: Our literature textbooks seemed to always include works by e e cummings, for example.) But we have this set of recommendations for writing in the English language that maximizes clarity and comfort when reading. Many high school students don't care about writing. Either they find it boring or don't understand why it's useful or are intimidated by books or something else entirely. So sometimes rules just have to be pounded into them. And anyone complaining about the quality of public education in the United States, before you get down on teachers, go take a look at what people get paid and what resources are provided to teachers. Especially in poorer parts of the country. We're getting what we pay for.

js2 12y ago

The English teacher beginning his lesson with "So." reminded me of this piece: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/22iht-currents.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/22iht-currents.html (SO this is about the word “so.”)

mcclosdl 12y ago

> Momentum, syncopation, rhythm and pattern make a sentence flow, because writers are trying to transfer the voices in their heads into yours. Had to read this several times because the horrible punctuation made the sentence unreadable without thinking.

billpollock 12y ago

Punctuation is about rhythm. Writing is about communication. And I start sentences with "and" all the time. I hardly know my grammar rules and I don't care. But I do care about making sure that writing is clear. That's the basic rule I've applied to the hundreds of books that I've edited. Oxford comma. Huh?

phillijw 12y ago
This is how I do it too. Rules are only rules because someone said so.

afarrell 12y ago

Half the time when I hear Barack Obama speak, I imagine his speechwriter typing out ", and this nation cannot afford that<period><tab><tab><tab>So I have been..." For every damn sentence.

cliveowen 12y ago

In every case where you have to decide between two options and both have advantages and disadvantages you should go with the popular one. In the case of the Oxford comma this means following what most of the world (including the publishing world) does and avoid it. The grammar of many languages forbids the Oxford comma, so there's no reason to keep this controversy going on with no real purpose.

Stratoscope 12y ago

Most of the time, you can use the Oxford comma, the non-Oxford comma or any other kind of comma, and it just doesn't make any difference. But sometimes you need it. Here's an example: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things, cache expiration, and off-by-one errors." Take out the comma and you ruin the joke - at least to my ears: "There are two hard problems in Computer Science: naming things, cache expiration and off-by-one errors."

nightpool 12y ago
The author addresses this: "contrived sentences that mean different things depending on the placement of commas, because this tactic was so successful in fixing that thing that time."
- ghaff 12y ago
  Yes but contrived sentences are bad examples. If you have to carefully parse a sentence's punctuation to come to the correct meaning, the sentence should be rewritten. (Analogous to forcing code maintainers to remember obscure precedence rules to understand your code.)
  - nightpool 12y ago
    I'm not sure what you're point is, becauae on first read it looks like you're agreeing with me? The whole point of the quote was that contrived sentences aren't good examples.
    - ghaff 12y ago
      The point I took from that quote was that many punctuation rules come about to address difficult to parse situations. My point is that, if it's a difficult to parse situation, you should probably rewrite it in some way so that punctuation isn't so critical to understanding.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  The author conveniently dismisses sentences that contradict his premise as "contrived." That's not addressing anything, it's just employing the No True Scotsman trick.

Camillo 12y ago

The problem is that many people have horrible rhythm when speaking, too. Telling them to just transfer that on the page results in horrible punctuation.

johnchristopher 12y ago

This is really nice to have footnotes just next to the line there are called from[0]. I rarely stumble upon a web page that actually improves on the paper format but this one does. [0] There must be a better way to phrase this.

jdhzzz 12y ago
Completely agree. I first saw this on the Grantland.com site. I loved it the moment I first came across it there.
aclements18 12y ago
Very much agree. Much more natural way to get additional information. I really like how Livefyre is doing something similar with Sidenotes: http://web.livefyre.com/streamhub/#liveSidenotes http://web.livefyre.com/streamhub/#liveSidenotes
Avshalom 12y ago
Margin notes.
ams6110 12y ago
Except they're invisible if you have JS disabled, as I do for normal browsing.
- Chris_Newton 12y ago
  A similar effect can be achieved using just CSS: float the marginal note left or right, set the width and apply (negative) horizontal margins to move it outside the main text block, and if required use relative positioning to shift it up so the baselines of the body text and the marginal note align.
andreasvc 12y ago
Except margin notes are not a web innovation. They are common in textbooks.
drbawb 12y ago

centro 12y ago

I found this in the source of the page.  Found my new favorite blogger; s'cept for PG.

Jemaclus 12y ago
And further down: /* Yeah, there's some shitty code here. There are some things that shouldn't be done. I did them. Sometimes, I had my reasons. Sometimes, I was just being lazy. But guess what? You're sitting there reading the source on some guy's blog. So fuck you. */
30thElement 12y ago
If that's what made him your favorite, you really need to read his earlier post that really blew up in popularity. It's a great read. http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks
- ssully 12y ago
  That just made my Sunday night. Another perk is it seems friendly enough to show non-programmers, but I dont think they will appreciate it as much.

kbar13 12y ago

Punctuation abuse in Apple ad copy, actually the worst ever.

bsilvereagle 12y ago

> and give the teachers a few things to decorate with smiley faces and Xs This little snippet made it pretty clear to me that the vast majority of my teachers weren't educating, but ticking check-boxes on whether I had fulfilled X,Y, and Z requirements.

archagon 12y ago

Is it just me, or does this guy sound a little like James Mickens, the hilarious Microsoft blogger? http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/12/24/10484402.aspx http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2013/12/24/10484...

Chattered 12y ago

> An Oxford comma is not a flip switch in an author's voice, it's a decision made in the moment to maintain the flow of the idea. This is simply a run-on, not a use of an Oxford comma as I understand it. And these bother me a lot. "An oxford comma is not a flip switch in an author's voice" is a grammatically complete sentence. So is "it's a decision made in the moment to maintain the flow of the idea." Separate them by a strong punctuation mark. If you want the rhythm of a comma, separate them by a semi-colon in preference to a stop. Semi-colons are made for this.

DanBC 12y ago
Several people in this thread are claiming that punctuation is used to convey information about how to pronounce the sentence. You're saying (and I tend to agree with you) that written punctuation is about meaning, and not about where a speaker would pause to take a breath. Can these two be kludged into a unified meaning? "Write better so that your written words sound good when spoken"?
- Chattered 12y ago
  I'm saying that punctuation has already solved this problem with the semi-colon. If you have two sentences where the second follows the other so closely that there is barely a breath in between, use a semi-colon rather than a stop. You convey both meaning and flow at the same time, and you keep the grammaticasters happy.
  - e12e 12y ago
    Ah, I love semicolons -- but they're not always as aesthetic as commas (and vice-versa). I find this is mostly a question of overall style and context (the more pretentious the text, the more out of place the semicolon; unless you're aspiring to be a pretentious (post-)modern text -- then the semicolon wins).

snowwrestler 12y ago

I understand punctuation fine, and I think the author is wrong. While commas in general are not governed by hard rules, the "Oxford comma" is an extremely specific use of the comma: to separate the listing of 3 or more equal items. There's nothing artistic about it; it's exactly the sort of situation that simply needs to be consistent to be readable. No offense to the author, who might be reading this, but it's possible to be too proud of your writing history and cleverness. Many people have had English teachers they loved, and any good writer has had a moment where they realized, or were told, to throw out the rules. It's essential to note that these moments always come in high school or college or later, when kids already have more than a decade of writing instruction under their belts. No one tells a second-grader to throw out all the rules. Because you're not actually supposed to throw them out. It's just a teaching technique to break through bad writing habits.

qu4z-2 12y ago
There's a difference between throwing out all the rules, and throwing out merely the useless ones: splitting infinitives, ending sentences with prepositions, and such. Having said that, I'm on-the-fence about consistent Oxford Commaing. The article's suggestion to decide case-by-case is interesting (and the argument is very well written) but I'd have to read a longer piece that alternated to find out whether it bothers me.
vacri 12y ago
On a tangent about consistency, I find it amusing when journalists slave themselves to the rules and create silly sentences. The one I'm thinking of is the convention that numbers under 10 are spelled out, and numbers 10 or higher are put in numeral form. Some journalists abandon consistency to stick to the 'rules': "the policy is predicted to have payoffs in eight to 12 years". I think I've even seen it in hyphenated form, too.
- Terr_ 12y ago
  IMO there's another reason to use alphabetic-vs-numeral amounts: How you expect the audience to use the number. If the numbers are figurative, poetic, or you want the reading-flow uninterrupted, you probably want letters, meaning that Carl Sagan gets quoted as "billions and billions", rather than "1,000,000,000s and 1,000,000,000s". Similarly, "we tried three times", rather than "we tried 3 times". On the other extreme, if you expect people to compare or analyze with numbers as they read them, favor numerals. "A fan favorite, bookies give him odds of 10 to 3."

spasquali 12y ago

coherentpony 12y ago

This was a joy to read. I highly recommend reading it out loud to someone. Try the techniques the author mentioned, and laugh out loud when he uses one of the techniques ironically. A wonderfully written piece of art. And excellently communicated, too.

gregoire 12y ago

This article makes me think about a question to which I still haven't found an answer: For me (I'm not a native english speaker by the way), when reading out loud a text, all commas are "translated" by a pause. But there are some sentences for which I don't understand why a comma is used, as I wouldn't pause at the comma when saying these sentences out loud. For example: > The problem is that many people have horrible rhythm when speaking, too. or > Thank you, John. In both these sentences, when reading them out loud, I wouldn't pause where there is a comma. And I actually never heard someone pause at these commas. So am I mistaken in thinking that commas should always be orally translated by pauses? Or do you pause at the comma when saying these sentences?

snogglethorpe 12y ago
In your first example, a pause there sounds a little awkward -- but putting a comma there also looks awkward. To my ear it sounds sort of antiquated. In the second example, adding a pause at that location sounds quite natural. It changes the meaning slightly, adding gravity to the statement, making the thank-you sound more heartfelt. [I'm a native English speaker, and the commas-as-pauses way of thinking has always worked very well for me...]
- gregoire 12y ago
  Thanks! About the first example, it seems to be commonly used: just in this HN thread, the ", too." pattern is used in 3 comments. But just like for you, a pause there sounds weird to me too.
saraid216 12y ago
When I see a sentence that ends with ", too", I tend to place a bit more emphasis on the second-to-last word ("speaking", in this case), which ends up adding a pause. So the sentence goes, "The problem is that many people have horrible rhythm while speaking, too." To my taste, the sentence goes on a bit too long: an emphasis probably belongs somewhere in the middle: but perfection is hard to come by. :P
breadbox 12y ago

mikeklaas 12y ago

Nobody understands typography either. The sin of the article is setting text justified without hyphenation.

shittyanalogy 12y ago

Sure, the oxford comma is not important unless it is disambiguating. But let's go meta and ask, Why do you care so much that people care? It's not like great or even good writers are getting hung up on whether or not to use the oxford comma. It's not like people loose jobs over the oxford comma. Everyone with half a brain knows those rules are guidelines. Just like how you shouldn't end a sentence with a preposition at. This post is the long form, literary version of feeding the trolls.

peterashford 12y ago

I enjoyed this essay immensely. I'm a bit of a pedant and a language geek (I have a collection of favourite archaisms!) but my favourite saying about our language is: "English is a juggernaut truck: it goes on regardless" I find it useful to say that to myself when I encounter some of the net's more egregious assaults on the language. It's not an assault, it's the language doing what it does.

_archon_ 12y ago
Have you published your list? I, for one, would like to peruse it.

Tloewald 12y ago

As with most art forms, the key is to learn the rules and then how to break them. Caring about minutiae like Oxford commas matters to people who know the rules including many who don't know when to break them, but pedants who cling to rules beyond their point of uselessness don't make the rules not worth understanding.

lhgaghl 12y ago

> If you told Dennis Leary he needed more Oxford commas, I can only hope he'd put a cigarette out in your eye, but I heard he quit smoking. I cringed. What was the point of this article other than wankery?

Flenser 12y ago

> Punctuation started with periods that told the speaker when to take a breath A great book that looks at how punctuation characters date back to ancient greek writing and how it was used to show how text should be read is Shady Characters: Ampersands, Interrobangs and other Typographical Curiosities: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EAA6QHC/ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00EAA6QHC/ Edit: You can read the first chapter in the preview with pictures of the ancient texts

Schwolop 12y ago

Did I miss a joke right at the end, or was the whole essay demeaned by getting could and couldn't wrong in the final sentence?

pdpi 12y ago
I think you did miss a joke, or at least didn't parse the sentence correctly (which probably negates his point in and of itself). After a bit of clean up, it reads "If Yoda could make his point clear, nobody should give a shit about Oxford commas."
- Schwolop 12y ago
  Ah! I was parsing it as something like "If Yoda could give a shit about Oxford commas, you shouldn't either." Which then lead to thinking it should have said 'couldn't' instead. Cheers

VeejayRampay 12y ago

Ahhh English... The odd ghoti language.

RakshaC 12y ago

On semicolon, this is a good read :http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon http://theoatmeal.com/comics/semicolon

ebspelman 12y ago

If you have an hour and this topic really interests you, I'd recommend David Foster Wallace's essay "Authority and American Usage" - http://wilson.med.harvard.edu/nb204/AuthorityAndAmericanUsage.pdf http://wilson.med.harvard.edu/nb204/AuthorityAndAmericanUsag.... He covers (very fairly and entertainingly, IMO) the major divide between linguistic prescriptivists and descriptivists, and why both camps have a point.