26 Reply by dagny (edited by dagny 2018-11-28 17:32:38)

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

Alan,
The easiest way for me to solve the whether to comma or not comma is Office 365. It's a subscription service, I think it's about 9 dollars a month, and the Word app has a grammar feature. When I click on anything underlined in blue, it tells me the grammar fix:commas, periods, hyphenations, and semi colons. It will also make suggestions on how to say the same thing in fewer words. It includes a dictionary and thesaurus. 

The program came standard on this computer, here is the link to buy:
https://products.office.com/en-US/compa … 7af786cc8f

I hope this helps.
smile

Quote Post 26

27 Reply by j p lundstrom (edited by j p lundstrom 2018-11-28 18:18:02)

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

jack the knife wrote:

Until someone can give me an example whereby putting in that last serial (Oxford) comma confuses the meaning instead of clarifying it, I'll be an Oxford comma writer! There's no reason not to use it, IMO, other than a determination to avoid commas at all cost. And then the onus would be on the anti-Oxford comma writer to make sure the sentence doesn't give the reader the pause he was trying to avoid in the first place.

Hear, hear! Anything that clarifies meaning is a boon to writers. There are way too many authors who assume commas are optional, or worse yet, merely decorative. If you're not sure how to punctuate, you need to find a reliable editor.

In AZ, back seat passengers are not required to use their seat belts. That doesn't mean they'd be better off without them. Same with the Oxford comma. Do everything you can to insure your readers' experience.

Quote Post 27

28 Reply by Mariana Reuter (edited by Mariana Reuter 2018-11-28 20:46:46)

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

I wonder why anybody would be willing to supress a punctuation mark that makes a statement clearer. Somebody above said the Oxford comma is distracting.

Distracting????

My goodness, it's not like it's wearing a clown suit and playing a fiddle, on a roof! It's only a comma, within a list of items, and the comma is clearly signalling that the last two items are part of the list individually rather than collectively.

Whether the latter is many times evident by itself and thus the Oxford comma can be avoided, is a different kettle of fish. Because I'm a beginner, I prefer to be on the safe side, so I always use it. It hasn't ever distracted me so much I totally forgot what the story was about.

Kiss,

Gacela

Quote Post 28

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

Mariana Reuter wrote:

I wonder why anybody would be willing to supress a punctuation mark that makes a statement clearer. Somebody above said the Oxford comma is distracting.

Distracting????

My goodness, it's not like it's wearing a clown suit and playing a fiddle, on a roof! It's only a comma, within a list of items, and the comma is clearly signalling that the last two items are part of the list individually rather than collectively.

Whether the latter is many times evident by itself and thus the Oxford comma can be avoided, is a different kettle of fish. Because I'm a beginner, I prefer to be on the safe side, so I always use it. It hasn't ever distracted me so much I totally forgot what the story was about.

Kiss,

Gacela

Further, the main purpose of ANY punctuation is to distract: capitalization distracts a reader from continuing the previous sentence, the full stop alerts you to stop, the comma tells you to slow down, etc. Distraction is not a legitimate reason for not using ANY punctuation.

Memphis Trace

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30 Reply by j p lundstrom (edited by j p lundstrom 2018-11-29 16:48:22)

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

Memphis, now you're just being a curmudgeon!

Quote Post 30

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

Lordy, it’s a wonder you folks get any writing done at all...

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Re: A Question About Serial Commas

Temple Wang wrote:

Lordy, it’s a wonder you folks get any writing done at all...

LOL

Quote Post 32

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

It's probably a spelling thing, but I use a cereal comma on Frosted Flakes. Take care. Vern

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Re: A Question About Serial Commas

vern wrote:

It's probably a spelling thing, but I use a cereal comma on Frosted Flakes. Take care. Vern

Cause you’re a cereal killer ....

Quote Post 34

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

Temple Wang wrote:
vern wrote:

It's probably a spelling thing, but I use a cereal comma on Frosted Flakes. Take care. Vern

Cause you’re a cereal killer ....

This is not a confession, but I've found drowning and crunching them critters before flushing the remains down a dark hole to be the best method and leaves no evidence. Take care. Vern

Quote Post 35

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

Norm d'Plume wrote:

Waiter: Your choice of entrees this evening are lobster, salmon, hamburger, steak and fried chicken.
You: I'll have the steak and fried chicken.
Waiter: No, you have to choose one.
You: I did. You said steak and fried chicken. That's what I want.
Waiter to Manager: Harry, put a damn comma after steak in the menu!

On the menu we have spam, and eggs and bacon; spam, eggs, and bacon; hash browns and spam, and eggs; eggs and spam, spam, and eggs.

On the menu we have spam, (Oxford comma) and eggs and bacon; (semicolon to separate items in long list) spam, eggs, (Oxford comma) and bacon; hash browns and spam, (Oxford comma) and eggs; eggs and spam, (Oxford comma) spam, (Oxford comma) and eggs.

In well articulated speech, a long pause for the semi-colon, shorter pause for Oxford comma, and very short pause for the common comma.

Items like eggs and bacon and eggs and spam with no comma before and are items of a combined nature separated by Oxford comma, after, or semicolon, before.

Quote Post 36

Re: A Question About Serial Commas

I just have a simple question:  In a 70,000 word novel, assuming an average of 3.5 characters per word, you'd have a total of 245,000 characters.  Is one more little comma added to ensure your reader isn't confused gonna be a huge problem for you?

All this new-fangled stuff bothers me.  Now editors and publishers only want one space after a period instead of two I learned to use when typing.  I've been typing for 50+ years.  Do you know how difficult it is to change now?  Ain't gonna happen.  If they want only one space, then they can go to Find, hit the space bar twice, then tell Word to change to one space.

I've used serial commas for more than 50 years.  Not gonna change now.  Just like using a comma before the word 'too.'  Not gonna change that either.  I, too, am sick of changes that don't work any better than the old way. 

I personally am over fixing something that's not broken.  I draw a line in the sand and say use the damn serial comma, use a comma before 'too,' and quit telling me to use only one space after a sentence.  You'll never teach this old dog new tricks.

Sincerely,
Set-in-my-ways in Georgia

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