2015 - Day 267/98 - Thursday...

I have to tell you, as far as I am concerned, the jury is still out on the Oxford Comma. I was doing just fine (journalistically) until my friend Jonathan started to correct my grammar and otherwise question my authority as a blogger...Oxford Comma, Smoxford Comma. Blah, blah, blah. It brings back (bad) memories of being corrected about how many spaces to put after a period. I am almost to the point where I can leave only one space after a period and have it feel somewhat natural, sort of acceptable, sort of... But this Oxford Comma crap has got me going cray cray. The freaking comma itself cannot even determine what it wants to call itself (see a journal entry a while back about the same problem my brother had deciding on what name he wanted to be called). The Oxford Comma is also known as the serial comma and/or the Harvard Comma. Its (is an apostrophe necessary here?) name is always pretentious (I like that part), and its (HELP ME) purpose is always the same: it comes before the conjunction (usually three things along with the word "and" or "or") in a list of things.

EXAMPLE: Because Bill is CDO (he has to alphabetize his OCD'ness)
he completes ordinary tasks using specific details for each, for instance, when washing his hands in a public restroom, he always uses three paper towels to dry his hands, he must always straighten the desks when he is in a meeting, AND the ink pens must always be placed in the pen cup POINT DOWN. Did you catch it? That last comma, the one IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING the word AND is the little bastard that this whole entry is about. The Oxford (or serial or Harvard) Comma.

Worse yet; the Oxford Comma is completely optional. It's (I know about that apostrophe) common in non-journalistic prose, and fairly standard in the US, but it's (again) not often used in the UK, Australia or South Africa.

Like anybody gives a crap!

Tune in tomorrow, when we will tear-up the semi-colon.

And get your mind out of the gutter.

Deeds, Actions, Changes, COMMAS, Kindnesses, Whirled Peas, FUN!