Grammar: Serial Killer
Posted by Andrew Beaujon
I hate the serial comma: the final comma in a series, e.g., "this, that, and the other thing."
The one after "that" is the serial comma. Associated Press style, and the style at most newspapers, is to not use the serial comma, i.e., "this, that and the other thing."
Most magazines use the serial comma. The Washington City Paper uses it, too (even though we otherwise adhere to AP style), and since it's my job to enforce our house style, I dutifully add that last comma anytime it's missing from someone's copy.
That doesn't mean I have to like it. My argument against the comma is simple: It's ungrammatical. Here at the copy desk, we hunt down and fix phrases such as "I ate tuna, and crackers for lunch" or "I came for lunch, but stayed for dinner." In both instances the final clause refers to the same subject as the first; they are properly cast, respectively, "I ate tuna and crackers for lunch" and "I came for lunch but stayed for dinner."
But the serial comma ignores this inconvenient fact. If you have three things for lunch, you magically don't have to obey the rules of grammar! Now you can say, "I ate a can of tuna, some sweet corn, and crackers for lunch," or "I came for lunch, got drunk, and stayed for dinner."
I understand the arguments in favor of the serial comma. Sometimes series-laden sentences can get confusing. In such instances, even the AP Stylebook says it's OK to use a serial comma to help the reader out; the example it gives is "The main points to consider are whether the athletes are skillful enough to compete, whether they have the stamina to endure the training, and whether they have the proper mental attitude." I'm not convinced that even that sentence is ambiguous enough to require the final comma. But hey, if it makes it easier for a reader to scramble through a thicket of a sentence, then Godspeed, foul squiggle.
Even better is to recast sentences that require a serial comma to make sense. The Laughorist, a blog that often touches on the mechanics of writing, got my attention with an argument for the serial comma (Vanity Fair's James Wolcott approved; so did Emdashes.) It comes from the Chicago Manual of Style and gives the following example: "With gratitude to my parents, Mother Teresa and the pope." Sorry, but that's nothing that couldn't be fixed with a little painless surgery: "With gratitude to the pope, Mother Teresa and my parents." (And before you ask, "pope" isn't capitalized without the pontiff's name in either AP or Chicago.)
All that said, I have no intention of attempting a serial-comma coup here at the City Paper. I think history counts at institutions, and anyway I'm pretty sure I'm alone in my hatred of this unnecessary, ungrammatical, and decorative piece of punctuation. Using it there didn't even hurt. Much.
4:54 PM |
Read 22 comments |
E-mail a friend |
del.icio.us
|
Digg it
22 Comments:
At 5:31 PM, Anonymous said...
I, agree with, you.
At 5:44 PM, Anonymous said...
I, couldn't care, less.
At 6:46 PM, Chris said...
I always use the serial comma as I also believe that it lessens the chance of ambiguity, as shown in the example. Your suggestion, "With gratitude to the pope, Mother Teresa and my parents.," would probably not be appropriate to the original author as most writers in this situation probably want to list their gratitudes in descending order of importance to themselves.
At 11:09 PM, Miss Scarlet said...
Yeah, I'm with Chris on this one. I would rather avoid any potential for ambiguity.
At 7:04 AM, Mikey said...
I am a cereal killer. I kill off three boxes a day.
At 2:38 PM, Joelogon said...
I'm on the opposite site of this -- company style does not use the serial comma, whereas I prefer it.
Then again, I still put 2 spaces after a period, so what do I know? -- Joe
At 3:54 PM, lmd said...
Oh man, I hear you, Andrew. I'm a copy editor at a magazine that adheres to AP style...except where we don't. So it's serial commas everywhere. My other least-favorite quirk is the fact that we spell out numerals under 10, BUT numbers related to grades in school (we write about education) are in number form. That means lots of "3rd graders." Ridiculous.
At 4:11 PM, Squiggly said...
The serial comma is not ungrammatical; it's just optional. The only reason AP still doesn't use it because space is at a premium in newspaper copy.
But let's clear up one thing -- "I came for lunch, but stayed for dinner" is an example of errantly splitting up two verbs in a compound predicate, not an example of items in a series. And "I ate tuna, and crackers for lunch" is wrong because no style guide in the world will tell you it's OK to use a comma with only two items in a series. The serial comma comes into play only when there are more than two items, and more often than not, it's a useful tool for clarity.
I agree with what Chris said about changing a running order just to work around the problem sans serial comma. Why not just use it and avoid the problem altogether?
A similar example in defense of the serial comma comes in the form of a legendary book dedication. I have no idea whether it's real or not, but it makes the point: "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God." Wow!
At 4:15 PM, Squiggly said...
(Hoping this doesn't double-post ... I'm anally making an edit.)
The serial comma is not ungrammatical; it's just optional. The only reason AP still doesn't use it is because space is at a premium in newspaper copy.
But let's clear up one thing -- "I came for lunch, but stayed for dinner" is an example of splitting up two verbs in a compound predicate, not an example of items in a series. And "I ate tuna, and crackers for lunch" is wrong because no style guide in the world will tell you it's OK to use a comma with only two items in a series. The serial comma comes into play only when there are more than two items, and more often than not, it's a useful tool for clarity.
I agree with what Chris said about changing a running order just to work around the problem sans serial comma. Why not just use it and avoid the problem altogether?
A similar example in defense of the serial comma comes in the form of a legendary book dedication. I have no idea whether it's real or not, but it makes the point: "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God." Wow!
At 5:26 PM, Anonymous said...
i agree with you most of the time. my only problem is in sentences such as: "Mayor John Doe today visited several city agencies, including housing, parks and recreation and consumer and regulatory affairs..." you need another comma to separate the last two agencies .... even by putting housing last, you'd still have so many "and"s that it would be unclear...
At 11:04 PM, Anonymous said...
I totally disagree. I am a fanatical serial comma fanboi.
For lunch, my daughter at celery, cheese and crackers, and peanut butter and jelly. Skimp on that serial comma and you have the potential for a seriously irritating miscue.
Really, is it too much to ask?
At 8:30 AM, Carl said...
But the serial comma ignores this inconvenient fact. If you have three things for lunch, you magically don't have to obey the rules of grammar! Now you can say, "I ate a can of tuna, some sweet corn, and crackers for lunch," or "I came for lunch, got drunk, and stayed for dinner."
So you're saying you believe corn goes on a cracker? Or that you got drunk in order to stay for dinner?
It does matter.
At 4:36 PM, Anonymous said...
You have no idea what "grammar" means. What you're dwelling on an amateur's set of dictates for writing; grammar on the other hand refers to syntax, morphology, semantics and maybe more, given the scope of the discussion. If you knew what grammar means, you wouldn't say something like "clause refers to the same subject", because, frankly, that's just nonsensical in the world of grammar. Okay?
At 5:12 PM, abf said...
I'm with you, Andrew. It's a useless piece of punctuation.
At 8:33 PM, the Laughorist said...
You are free to agree or disagree with the serial comma, but how can you declare it is ungrammatical? It's really not so much as a matter solely of style, but style rests on principles. The serial comma 99% of the time will assure elegance, balance, and clarity. Anyway, now, I, understand, why, my, blog, got, so, many, hits, earlier, this, week.
At 1:23 AM, Anonymous said...
Squiggly is absolutely corect in his/her assessment. So is anonymous 5-you really don't know what grammar means. Why not take a linguistics class and broaden your horizons?
At 10:14 AM, Michael J. West said...
Now, now, Andrew. Remember the rule? "When in doubt, sound it out." When you speak a sentence that contains a series of items, you pause before speaking the final item. I do, at least.
Then again, in three successive editing gigs I've yet to use a style that didn't include the serial comma. So maybe I'm just conditioned to put serial commas in both speech and writing. Such is the life of the copy editor.
At 9:52 AM, Mike said...
In cases like the example by Anonymous who ate "cheese and crackers" and "peanut butter and jelly" for lunch, even those of us who despise the serial comma concede that it is useful when elements of the series contain conjunctions. (And when elements of the series contain commas, we use semicolons to separate them, including a serial semicolon.)
The serial comma is not grammatically incorrect in most cases. It is, however, archaic, stilted and starchy -- it belongs in the New Yorker and scholarly books. It does not belong in general-interest periodicals. It signals the reader that the writer is wearing a three-piece suit and bow tie.
At 10:28 AM, Anonymous said...
From several career journalists who actually use the so-called "serial comma:" It is not grammatically incorrect. The serial comma can make lists in sentences appear more structured, it can make copy read more clearly, and it can break up sentences so the points are made in a better manner.
At 8:16 AM, Anonymous said...
This comment is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
At 4:15 PM, Anonymous said...
What this debate has shown, surely, is that sometimes a serial comma is needed to make meaning clear, and sometimes it isn't. So the rule OUGHT to be, "use a serial comma only when necessary".
Our guide on all matters of style must be St Augustine of Hippo: "It is better to be criticised by the grammarians than misunderstood by the people."
At 2:38 PM, Anonymous said...
This has to be the most asinine grammatical argument I've ever heard. There's no reference to making bettter sense, there's not even any real reference to any kind of grammar rules that account for how we really use punctuation. You assume that there must be incredibly simple rules in that you think there should only be one single thing that a comma could conceiveably indicate, but real usage (and prescriptions by most non-journalistic sources) indicate a wide variety of uses for almost any punctuation mark. Your argument basically reeks of anti-intellectualism, whether you realize it or not.
Post a Comment
<< Home