Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
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
I have never heard this before — it makes great sense! This is why I love Ricochet; ya learn something new every day.
Churchill said that it is precisely the kind of thing up with which he will not put!
He’s wrong. I know that might be traumatic. By the way, I still put two spaces after a sentence ending. The horrors.
Did I not? If I ever fail to do this, it is a typo. Unintentional. Now I’m being paranoid. Ah, the perils of wading into the topics of grammar, style, and punctuation.
I was taught a, b and c with the explanation that if a sentence contained b and c alone, nothing that preceded it in a list would compel changing the manner in which the last 2 items are displayed. The mysteries of the semicolon, on the other hand, still challenge me.
It’s too bad that Alpha-Bits doesn’t come with punctuation.
Then we could be arguing the merits of the cereal comma.
That’s right. I went there.
There are some things man was never meant to know.
I love this topic. Let me demonstrate an actual question that could occur almost any day in my home which requires the use of a serial comma:
“Would you like bacon and eggs, spaghetti and meatballs, or sandwiches and chips for dinner tonight?”
For those of us who think visually, the comma is quite needed to isolate one item (or set of items) from others. Using sets really makes this stand out.
My only issue with commas, if I have one, and, it is entirely possible that my bits of OCD make it so, is that some people write, perhaps even speak, every aside that flows through their minds. Some people should simply be required to write with footnotes so the rest of us have the options of indulging or ignoring the rabbit trails.
I avoid the serial comma controversy by using the diuresis instead. I find that my sentences flow better.
That’s probably why I leave it out, then. I’m a student of the AP stylebook. I seem to recall that during my years typesetting for Wolters-Kluwer, they followed that style as well.
Taking out the serial comma renders a cleaner look that I preferred when I worked as an editor as well.
All my life I have suffered from l’esprit d’escalier. There is no cure.
I’m suddenly feeling hungry for some reason.
When all else fails, a semicolon.
People still have secretaries?
Sure there is. Never leave the bar.
If I must choose, I will keep the comma and drop the ‘and.’
A firm stand on the all important ‘state of grammar’ but wishy-washy about global warming.
Yes, the serial comma is a matter of style. But I’d prefer that journalists worry more about the accuracy of their reporting and more about their bias bleeding through their reporting than about whether they need the serial comma to avoid confusion. I follow Bryan Garner’s lead: use the serial comma always. And by the way, I think he writes the grammar and punctuation chapters for The Chicago Manual of Style and top of many other books on style and usage.
For the good of the order, consider subscribing to Bryan Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day (five days a week) from Oxford University Press.
http://global.oup.com/academic/subscribe/;jsessionid=7C98719B80C68F4D18A46C4B819A7F62?cc=us&lang=en&
That said, today’s entry is “wanton; reckless.” I’m curious what he’ll do when he comes to the end of the alphabet. Start over?
This American fetish for putting punctuation that was not part of the original quote inside the quotation marks is evil, I think (with the exception of the comma used to transcribe dialog, as in “‘It’s not raining anymore,‘ he said.”). It promotes lying to your reader.
If you end a question with a quotation that was originally not a question, and you make the question mark appear as if it were part of the original quotation, what is the poor reader supposed to think?!
The British system is really much more sensible in this regard. I know a lot of American writers in precise disciplines (math, law, physics, computer science and IT help) who refuse to use this ridiculous American convention, no matter how hard their English teachers tried to pound it into them.
I started rebelling against it in high school, no matter how many points my English teacher took off. Sometimes conventions really are wrong.
Oh, for the days when Rico 2.0 was still buggy enough that I could like this comment 100 times!
Exactly.
I think WFB’s example was not unlike others given here, about the difference between “red, white, and blue” shirts and “red, white and blue” shirts. But somewhere (I can’t remember where), he gave a more forceful example (I can’t remember it either) to someone who was rather stubborn about his opposition to the Oxford comma. It was very witty, as one would expect, made the other guy look bad, and completely convinced me.
Another example, found on the web: “I’d like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God.”
Lovely post and comments, and, in 2.0, very difficult for me to read. Do the Most High Editor-gods read the site? Without getting a migraine?
By accident this morning I meant to check out Ricochet but hit the tab for Powerline instead and for a second I thought that our Masters had seen the light. Serifs! Ease of navigation! Small illustrations! Soothing-ish colors! If it weren’t for enticing posts like this, I would spending all my free time in the Aussie pub run by Tim Blair. Gotta go find some aspirin.
Certainly there are times when the serial (Oxford) comma is unneccessary. However, my feeling is that the Oxford comma never makes things less clear. So why not get in the habit of using it all the time?
First, yes, there should be a comma before “however” in your sentence. Second, adding the Oxford comma never reduces clarity; by making the rule variable, aren’t we adding complexity for both reader and writer since both would then need to consider whether or not the lack of an Oxford comma is meaningful?
EDIT: I see that Z has already made my second point.
It stems from a medieval belief that Latin was an inherently superior language to English. Thus prescriptive grammarians insisted that English should mirror Latin as much as possible, and since Latin didn’t allow prepositions without a following noun phrase, English shouldn’t either. The prohibition against split infinitives also stems from this prejudice.
I severely offended my administrative assistant by honoring her on “Secretaries Day” back before they changed the name of the day to “Administrative Professionals Day.” Awkward.
Let it be known that I went to secretarial school right out of high school and worked several years as a “secretary” while putting myself through college. I’m pretty sure I know a secretary when I see one. But now I keep quiet about it.
Drew, I also learned AP style initially and prefer it. I am of the “when in doubt, leave it out” school of punctuation. I think many people add commas where they “hear” them in speech, which is not always an accurate way of punctuating. (By the way, I was also a typesetter (Compugraphic) and my dad started out as a Linotype operator.)
We had the old Compugraphics when I was in J-school, but it was in the early 90s that I got my start with modern page-composition software (QuarkXpress 2.11 way back then). But we still used a waxer and pasted in tables and graphics. I can’t imagine doing such a thing today.
Anyway, I think my affinity for AP style goes back to J-school, but I picked up a lot of my obsessive page-comp habits just from having to deal with the pickiest editors on the planet.
Too many sentences that omit the serial comma have to be reread in order to understand the meaning of the sentence. When a writer at National Review questioned its use years ago, Mr. Buckley wrote a memo indicating that “it shall stay.” For that – and logical reasons – I’ve always used it.
As for the importance of commas in general:
Having finally wrested control of his kingdom from a group of powerful Welsh barons, Edward II in 1327 once more fell from favor. This time, however, the Queen (and close buddy of the barons) took a more direct approach to the problem. With the help of those barons, Isabella deposited her husband in a distant castle under guard, installed their son Edward III as the new king, and enlisted the aid of the Bishop of Exeter to dispose of said Ed the Elder. Now the Bishop, a major and clever player in this drama – and wishing to keep his clerical and secular skirts clean – issued an order in writing that would implicate neither him nor his persons of hench: “Kill Edward not to fear is good.” An order of reprieve or an order of execution, depending on whether Edward’s guards chose to ‘see’ a comma before, or after the word “not.”