The Oxford comma: a comment

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 03:25:56 GMT

Language Log made a post about the Oxford (or serial) comma, which required comment-locking almost immediately, it seems. Because this is an issue of contention.

My own take: When I was a child, within the first couple of years of learning to read, I had a passionate, passionate hate of the appearance of a comma preceding the word "and". I don't remember why, precisely, but I remember ranting about it to my somewhat amused mother.

Then, for a period of some years, it left the realm of things I was actively caring about, and I didn't think consciously about it until I noticed that I had become a consistent user of the Oxford comma, and mildly irked by its absence where I felt it was needed.

I think it is for this reason that I have a tendency to think of the inability to appreciate the Oxford comma as being somewhat childish.

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And lo, the Essay Spam begins: Part one, Language

Wed, 13 May 2009 04:28:06 GMT

I will, for the sake of the sanity of my readers, make the effort to edit this post, rather than adding new ones, however.

Usual practice: Notes are public, actual proper essay content is locked until after the essay is handed in. If people are interested, they can read the essay itself when it's complete (probably I'll just throw a PDF up). I'm pretty sure that I've granted access to everyone who's subscribed to me, now. Locked content tends to be either Very Personal stuff (although, since I've made a medium-grade effort to keep the hateful trolls who've made me reluctant to post in my own livejournal from knowing this one is here, middling-personal stuff will probably be reasonably open), fiction works in progress, and chunks of essays and the like; if you'd rather be dropped from access for easier filtering of my posts, let me know.

( Anyway, essay. )

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Moments of Permanence

The Oxford comma: a comment

And lo, the Essay Spam begins: Part one, Language