While I have never had any doubts about whether I should have married P, I have had plenty of moments when it suddenly occurs to me just how good that decision was. One of those moments happened the other day when I was singing the lyrics to a song called "Oxford Comma" by Vampire Weekend. The opening lines go "who gives a #%*%# about an oxford comma, I've seen those English dramas too, they're cruel." Meanwhile, P looks at me and says, I know one person who gives a "#%(*)" about an oxford comma, and proceeds to tell me about a court case whose claims centered upon the absence of an oxford comma. Apparently, the issue was that in their last will and testament, the deceased didn't put an oxford comma before one of the recipient's names, and thus the court couldn't decide whether the assets should be divided in half or in thirds. So, for example, if I wanted to will something to peter, paul, and mary...I would have to put the comma after paul. if I didn't do that, and wrote instead "peter, paul and mary" then peter would get half while paul and mary would have to divide the other half.
This is why grammar matters, people! And, why moments such as these are vital to a happy marriage. You know, the moments where you think, my wife knows more about grammar than I do, and I love her for it. It's enough to send your spouse off to a linguistics course on the growth and development of the English language.
2 comments:
Should there always be a comma after "and"?
I have always done it like Peter, Paul and Mary.
no, not always. In fact, the use of an oxford comma is optional, but often helps to reduce confusion when listing items in a series.
see below
http://lilt.ilstu.edu/golson/punctuation/comma.html
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