The Oxford Comma

As a native English speaker (and writer) I'm in awe of those who are not and speak/write English as a second (or third) language and do so as well as some of the writers here. English is NOT an easy language to learn and the rules of "proper" grammar and spelling are seemingly quite complicated. Congratulations.

I keep my grammar/spellchecker "on" in Word, even if it's not useful for some grammar rules (it's especially aggravating for comma/semi-colon use and some other, more obscure things) but I appreciate the "catching" of excess spaces between words and the occasional misspelled word (I'm a pretty good speller, most of the time) so it's worth the trouble. Overall, the Oxford comma seems to similar, i.e., it's more valuable than not and serves a useful purpose. Most of the time...

There is a box in the Word 2010 Spelling and Grammar Checker that allows you to turn off the grammar portion, and there is an Options button below that, where you can fine tune it. You have to check grammar if you want to see the readability statistics, so I sometimes do turn it on just for that if I'm curious.

While we are on the subject of commas, I have noticed an extraordinarily large number of authors omitting the comma when directly addressing someone.

For instance: "What do you want Laura?" or "Laura what do you want?"

In both cases, "Laura" should be set off by a comma. I am sure this rule hasn't changed, so why is this so prevalent? Is it different in other cultures perhaps?

Perhaps, though I shouldn't think so. On another thread about punctuation, I noted the difference between:

Mother Teresa is at the door.

and

Mother, Teresa is at the door.

And then you have:

Let's eat Grandma.

and

Let's eat, Grandma.

And let's not forget:

I want to see the tigers eating Daddy.

and

I want to see the tigers eating, Daddy.

Silly examples perhaps, but they do show how a comma can change the whole meaning of a sentence.

Personally, I'd punctuate that "I do accept that there is a case for splitting into two separate sentences; but sometimes this doesn't read correctly, and in prose as in poetry the music of the language is important."

But punctuation is often a matter of personal taste (check out Hemingway vs. Faulkner, just for a start), and its chief function is clarity and lucidity. If a comma is needed to resolve ambiguity or to make a sentence easier to read, as far as I'm concerned it goes in and the hell with what Oxford or anyone else says. And I say that as an Oxford graduate....

Personally, I think the Oxford comma is overrated, I much prefer the Altrincham apostrophe...

I used to live very close to Altrincham.

That lot were famed for how much they used to abuse apostrophe's.

There's a good (and humerous) book about the history of English called "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" - the title being the punchline of a joke about a koala bear.

There's one interesting use of a semicolon that I've seen in a few books: separating the items of a list when some of those items contain commas.

For example:
The silly mouse invited the devious, lazy red frog; the old toad; and the new kitten to her party.

Of course that example contains the Oxford semicolon.

I'm not always a fan of using proper grammah in fiction, partially because i don't remember (or, if pressed on the topic, don't care) that much about it. Even though i learned it all in uh, grammar school (for those outside of the USA, "Grammar" or "Elementary" School is generally attended prior to age 14 or so), my sense of grammar is probably more intuitive than thoughtful; if it sounds and looks right to me, I will use it. If "grammar nazis" (no one here fits this bill) criticize me, I will usually respond in one of 3 ways: a sincere "thanks for pointing that out," a sarcastic "thanks for pointing that out," (go ahead, you figure out which one I really mean), or a sincere/sarcastic explanation - depending on my mood - which essentially boils down to "yes, I meant to do that, and here is why."

The one use of the comma, oxford or otherwise, which i don't remember seeing in previous posts, is to control pace. The comma slows the reader down, making him or her pay just a little more attention to what has been written. A writer can use it, especially after a long segment of fast action or dialogue, to slow the story down, make it more introspective, and let the reader's brain take over while their emotions and heart rate get back to normal. In these cases, a deliberate (little pun there) use of the comma, even if used incorrectly, is a useful writing tool.

BTW, on a less serious note, I deliberately used a number of the different types of punctuation in the first paragraph. Feel free to point out any incorrect usages. My response will be "thanks for pointing that out."

I think that we have gotten very far afield from the original intent of this discussion, which is a blatant attempt by Guyde to get himself invited to more parties by making the claim that he is a comic and a d.j. (The claim that Guyde is trying to get himself invited, along with two other guys, seems to me to be unlikely.)

Anyone else remember graphing sentences in school? It made it a lot easier when there were commas to show you where to break things up.