Common Comma Comments

An epidemic of commas has beset writing of late.

Every sentence I read is peppered with the pesky punctuation. This disease is not confined to bad fiction and emails. Even some of the better writers seem to be infected.

Shrunk and White, a succinct guide to grammar, includes five comma rules, two of which include the phrase “do not…” Among other rules, the one about lists suggests that commas only populate the string after it has grown past three. These masters of grammatical brevity have been on a witch (which?) hunt against the insidious device for seventy five years and appear to be losing the battle.

Since converting to the most recent edition of Microsoft Word, I have left the grammar guide in operation. It can be less than helpful. In the third paragraph above, it advised me to leave out the comma after the word “grammar,” even though the preceding phrase was a parenthetic expression. Admittedly, parsing English is a tricky task for a computer. That is one reason why artificial intelligence has failed to make much progress.

The Chicago Manual of Style is both more and less restrictive in its advice. It encourages an “open” writing style which is less constrained by punctuation, but also offers a “close” form with more detailed, choppy rules.

Of course, famous writers like James Joyce revel in their capacity to flout the rules. The last section of Ulysses runs on for perhaps two hundred pages without a speck of punctuation. 

More power to him. He may be famous, but the result is still unreadable.

Joyce would feel right at home texting from a cell phone. I don’t even know how to produce a comma on my cell phone. Judging from the texts I see, few other people find them necessary, anyway. 

U C what U luk 4.

Among the other punctual abuses that make me boil, the apostrophe ranks high. Again, Microsoft Word is more of a hindrance than a help. 

Consider the plural form of a proper name: my character Frank is a Healy. His family is the Healys. Word usually insists that the only acceptable plural form includes an apostrophe “Healy’s.” The Chicago Manual of Style agrees with me (or I agree with them).

Michigan speech is notorious for apostrophe abuse.

A typical Michigander will say, “I’m going to Kmart’s,” or “My car was built by Ford’s.” My incipient baldness results directly from pulling my hair out over such possessiveness. I suppose they can’t help themselves. 

Perhaps the comma virus has risen to a new level.