Grammar Nazi

[Andara Bledin]

"The serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma or Harvard comma) is the comma used immediately before a grammatical conjunction (nearly always and or or; sometimes nor) that precedes the last item in a list of three or more items. For example, a list of three countries might be indicated by the phrase "Portugal, Spain, and France", which is written with the serial comma, or by the phrase "Portugal, Spain and France", which is written without it."~Wikipedia.

See, this is where I use my own 'rule of pause.'

If you have only two items, there's no comma because you don't have a pause between the items. Peanut butter and jelly.

If you have three or more, you will find that you pause slightly between each of the items, including the final two. No ifs, ands, or buts.

I've never really understood the idea of dropping the last comma in a list, except as it reduces the number of characters for printing purposes.

^-.-^

[Ironclad Alibi]

This discussion has inspired me to post in the Jokes area. Look for CH-CH-CHANGES.

I publish a monthly newsletter that has a lot of material written by others. The others are usually people who write professionally. Correcting their grammar can be a challenge. My wife proofreads the newsletter, and we frequently have discussions on proper usage.

In my job I write a lot of governmentese. That is a real grammatical challenge.

[LingualMonkey]

As a guy who teaches English, I am understandably twitchy (I think) about grammar problems, up to and including people who spell "grammar" with an "e."

I'm also the guy who has sent letters to Pepsi and McDonald's when I found typos on promotional materials.

Several years ago, my wife was getting her hair cut at a local salon. The sign out front read, "If you wear open-toed shoes this summer, get them pedicured." I went in and complained--why would I pedicure my shoes? In fact, why would I pedicure my shoes if the shoes don't have toes?

The manager changed the sign.

[Ironclad Alibi]

The sign out front read, "If you wear open-toed shoes this summer, get them pedicured."

A nail salon my wife and I go to had a new sign that said "We now use sterilized instruments for our manicures and pedicures." We suggested they redo the sign to remove "now" since it implied they used to use non-sterilized instruments. The change was quickly made.