The Cellar - Fight the Grammer Nazis

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Quote:

Originally Posted by ZenGum (Post 760336)

IMHO, the poster is wrong.

"... the strippers, JFK and Stalin" is a list of three items of equal grammatical importance. This describes the first picture.

"... the strippers JFK and Stalin" or "... the strippers: JFK and Stalin" would create a parallel structure where "strippers" modifies both "JFK" and "Stalin". This describes the second picture.

"... the strippers, JFK, and Stalin" has a redundant comma. The 'here comes the next item' function of a comma is served by the 'here comes the final item' function of "and".

You don't write "I invited JFK, and Stalin." do you?

And by not writing Oxford commas for ten years I saved almost enough time to write this post. :D

Do you guys have Strunk and White down under? In a list there is always a comma between the next to last item and the and.

scuse me, but don't comma's look this this : ' Down under? Maybe that's why they abu'se apostophe's 'so much?

In that case, sire, your Strunk and White are a pair of colonial upstarts who are, frankly, wrong. :p

Sorry, that should be Strunk, and White.

Sorry, I forgot to say "in a list of three or more items."

And I noticed your repeated use of the parenthetic comma. Very nice indeed.

:) See even the "experts" disagree...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lola Bunny (Post 759887)

The Oxford comma (I never knew it has a name!) was introduced around the early 90's. When we were learning how to write, we weren't supposed to put a comma before the word 'and.' From what I heard, we had lawyers to thank for the grammar change. They needed that extra comma to make things clearer in legal documents.

The Oxford comma (?) has been around much longer than the early 90's. It was taught as an optional use of the comma when I was in high school back in the 60's.