Question: Now that I’m in charge of a library, is it okay for me to declare not using the Oxford comma a fireable offense?
Answers:
Hannah Montana Magic 8 Ball: UNDERNEATH IT ALL YES
Princess Magic 8 Ball: ♥ NEVER!
Fortune Cookie Magic 8 Ball: HONORABLE ANSWER IS YES
I Can Has Cheezburger Magic 8 Ball: ZZZ… IR SLEEPING
Woody’s Roundup Magic 8 Ball: THAT’S A MIGHTY BIG YES
Hm. Results are mixed, and perhaps this warrants further exploration, but we all know the right answer, don’t we?
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9 Comments
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EXACTLY, Little Willow. I knew you would understand.
Long live the Oxford comma. (You got more YESes than NOs there anyway.)
It’s only right for me to use my powers for good.
let’s see…so it’s not okay to make people bring you pizza, but you can force a superfluous comma on them? hrmm.
;)
also, i’m more worried about the haphazard way people are throwing around apostrophes without the S just because a name already ends in S. i feel like we totally gave in to bread and circuses on that one! the purdue owl site says seuss’ (just adding the apostrophe without another S) is now also okay. i don’t think that’s okay. do *you* think that’s okay?
With Seuss, I would definitely do Seuss’s. The rule is supposed to be if you can say it easily, you should add the “s” in that case.
People’s misunderstanding of apostrophes seems so huge that I can’t wrap my mind around how to fix it. It’s troubling. When Lucas was in third grade, I taught him that we’re the type of people who appreciate the difference between plural and possessive. That was some years ago, though. It’s probably time for a review.
The apostrophe S after the S as opposed to S apostrophe, is a tricky one. I was firmly in the camp of the former, but am now sliding into the “it depends” group because my daughter is getting two different sets of instructions (home and school). Sigh.
It’s a matter of style, I think, rather than a hard-and-fast rule, but there are a dismaying number of teachers teaching grammar and usage who do not understand things like matters of style and also the difference between grammar and usage. It’s dismaying.