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Krauthammer, the Serial Comma[,] and the Wit of the Staircase
In Things That Matter, Charles Krauthammer declares war on the comma in general, and the serial comma (“…whether you write a,b, and c rather than a, b and c”) in particular:
“[Commas] are a pestilence. They must be stopped. This book is a continuation of that campaign.”
This surprised me. Long have I adhered to the gospel of the serial comma. I was trained early to render it “a, b, and c.” This was further ingrained in me when I discovered Strunk and White in college. See rule #2 in Part I, “The Elementary Rules of Usage.” In my 1959 copy, it is on the first page. You can’t miss it.
Placing the serial comma before the “and” has a certain logic to it. I’ve always thought that the absence of the comma before “and” leaves the final two items in a list joined more closely than the other items. This may be the writer’s intent, but it may not be. Most often, in my experience, “b” and “c ” shouldn’t be any more closely linked than “a” and “b.”
However, Charles Krauthammer has earned the benefit of the doubt. Since he is pretty much always right (I’m not sure I’ve ever known him to be wrong) his assertion in favor of “a, b and c” was enough to give me pause to reflect. I’ve been paying close attention since I read Things That Matter last October.
I see “a, b and c” everywhere. It seems to be the house style of The Wall Street Journal. I think NR is still an “a, b, and c” outfit. I must admit, I just may be coming around to Krauthammer’s position. I think “a, b and c” has a cleaner look. This is a radical change for me. (I once threw a fit when some marketing people used “a, b and c ” in the copy on my medical group’s website.)
Am I going mad? Am I so crazed with Krauthammer-worship that I have recklessly discarded my principles? Or is he right?
Alas, I had the chance to mention this to him last week when I met him at a reception before a talk he gave in Oklahoma City. I fell victim to what I have elsewhere seen Krauthammer call l’esprit de l’escalier, or “the wit of the staircase” (the feeling of thinking of a witty comment or riposte, but only as you are on the staircase leaving the dinner party). I just had a few seconds, so it would have only been one line, something like “You’ve turned me against the serial comma,” but it would have been better than the nonplussed stupid blank smile I displayed as I sat down to have my picture taken with him. Fortunately, he rescued my dad and me by asking us our names. We told him, and he said, “So you guys are brothers, right?” (I’m 39; my dad is 76.)
I also could have mentioned that he turned me on to Borges…or that my wife was PO’d at me because she was sick at home on the couch and CK wasn’t going to be on Special Report.
It was an unbelievably great talk, by the way. He’s the best we have.
Published in General
That could totally be taken the wrong way.
;-)
FYI, though I doubt Ricochet has a formal editorial policy, I noted that whoever promoted this post of mine removed the Oxford comma from the title.
I just thought of a way to explain the need for a series comma:
I have three sandwiches: turkey, ham, and peanut butter and jelly.
The series comma tells the reader that the last item in the list is not a compound item. Language is a code, and the commas are signals.
Editing: Oops, I’m sorry. Aaron already said this. I should remember to read the comments before I comment. :)
And if not using a series comma is part of the Associated Press style, then there is one more reason for me not to use AP style.
Commas are useful, and they matter:
is not the same as:
In the first example I have three companions. In the second, I have only one.
Exactly.
Hoo boy–I can see I’ve been misusing grammar egregiously. I don’t care much however. BTW–should there be a comma before the however? I’m with CK on that Oxford comma and commas in general. I like fewer of them. I say, use the Oxford comma when it makes sense (as in Marci’s example above) but otherwise leave it out.
This made me laugh so hard my husband wanted to know what was so funny and then he laughed hard too.
And while we’re in confessional mode, let me confess that though I am not a teen-aged girl, I use exclamation points with great abandon! Then I usually go back through what I have written and take them out. For some reason my finger convulsively goes there.
I recall being taught that the comma replaced the “ands” in a series of items. Nonetheless. for want of an Oxford comma, physical and speech therapy must share a certain amount of funds for a given Medicare patient while occupational therapy gets its own pot ‘o gold.
My secretary was “taught” that punctuation always goes outside a parantheses (and sometimes it does). (But not always.) The difference is so patently obvious, I want to smack her hard every time I have to correct this. (Every brief has to be proofed for this error). Arrrrrggggggghhhhhhh!
“Let’s eat Grandma.”
“Let’s eat, Grandma.”
Commas save lives.
Commas and why proper usage is important: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/16/books/a-literary-battle-that-may-hang-by-a-comma.html
And since we are in confessional mode, my issue is semicolons and hyphens. I am under the mistaken belief that they are as important to others as they are to me.
A friend once asked, “Is anal retentive hyphenated?” I went into great detail explaining only if it was followed by a noun: the anal-retentive man; not the man was anal retentive.
He then went into great detail defining “the anal-retentive friend” and “sarcasm”.
Love this. :)
With all due respect to Dr. Krauthammer, William F. Buckley once expressed his favor for the serial comma. That’s good enough for me.
I will give up my comma before an and as soon as an old nun comes by and beats it out of me.
The title of Lynn Truss’ book, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” comes from a printed description of pandas at a zoo. There should have been no comma, as pandas eat shoots and leaves. They don’t show up with a gun, shoot someone, then leave.
Her book is delightful, by the way.
I support that rule. On the other hand, many complex nouns are hyphenated or kept separate words unnecessarily.
Darn it, now I have to think of examples! Um… sportscar, doorbell, afterall, everyday, etc. (Yes, I’m going to use “etc” to pretend I have more ready to share!)
There is apparently an undefined grace period common word combinations must go through before they can be combined without a hyphen or space.
Are instances of awkward word duplication, such as “that that”, particular to English? Or are they common among languages?
Not that that is important.
All this talk of punctuation reminds me of a story about a writer, a story that every writer can relate to. The writer was at home on a Friday when some friends invited him to join them for a weekend trip. “Oh, I just couldn’t get away right now,” said the writer. “I have too much work to do on my book.”
The friends went off without him, but when they checked with him on Monday they found his manuscript just as it was on Friday. “Why didn’t you come with us?” said one. “You didn’t do any writing all weekend.”
“Not true,” said the writer, pointing to a page in the manuscript. “You see that comma right there? On Saturday I changed it to a semicolon, and on Sunday I changed it back.”
Jack, sometimes my writing goes at about that pace.
Krautcomma.. The comma ectomy and comma sense.
I read a book about the history of the Apollo program a few years ago. The author used periods within acronyms to indicate whether the acronym was pronounced as a word, as in NASA, or each letter was pronounced individually, as in the N.A.C.A. (the predecessor to NASA).
Y.M.C.A.?
Nah, it’s YMCA.
I really don’t like it when I can’t avoid a word duplication. But sometimes it really seems inevitable.
Actually, now I think it’s just “the Y” (oh why). The C was controversial, but MA wouldn’t drop it.
As long as we are discussing grammatical conventions, I would like to take this opportunity to point out that a preposition is a perfectly fine thing to end a sentence with.
I’m not sure what authority that spurious rule originate from. I hope the unnessary prohibition will be tossed out.
I didn’t mean to imply that rule was universal; I was just giving an example where it came in handy.
I’ve seen it attributed to Churchill.
I take no backseat to any of the admirers of Dr. K, but I am a committed user of the serial comma. I can live with this small imperfection in Dr. K.
I derive great satisfaction from a well-placed semicolon.