A Snarl of Serial Commas (minicast)

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Welcome to another mini cast from A Way with Words.

I’m Martha Barnette.

Here’s a little secret I want to share with you.

If you want to get a rise out of me, all you have to do is say that the serial comma should be optional.

Write out the colors of the American flag without sticking a comma between the words white and blue.

Well, to me, them’s fighting words.

So you can imagine how happy I was when we heard recently from another Martha who shares my devotion to this precious piece of punctuation.

That Martha lives in Indianapolis with her husband, Mark.

They’re both English teachers, but Martha called to say that she just discovered something shocking about the man she thought she knew.

We were on our anniversary weekend camping, and I was telling him about something that happened in class, and I was explaining the comma to one of my students.

And he said to me, “Wait, you teach them that?”

What was it?

Whoa.

And I said, “Yeah, you don’t?”

And he said, “No, he doesn’t.”

And we had never talked about it before.

So we then got in an argument about whether or not it should be used.

Oh my.

That’s what I was calling.

Wait, so which comma is this?

The Oxford comma or the Harvard comma, serial comma.

The comma before a conjunction in a series of things.

Right, Martha, give us an example of that.

Well, I think like the colors of the American flag are red comma, white comma, and blue.

And that’s how I teach it.

And so, but then my husband, I found out, doesn’t.

So I guess what I was, what I want to know, of course, is that I should be teaching that to my students because I feel that’s the right thing to teach.

So what’s your defense of your position?

Well, I feel that it should be used.

I think it, you know, in the classes that I teach, for one, we, in my writing class, we teach APA format and in the APA book, it says we should use it.

And then two, it really, it can, you know, help stop misunderstanding or ambiguity.

And those are the reasons, basically.

I want to hear from your husband.

Is he around?

Yes, he’s sitting right next to me.

What’s his name?

Mark.

Mark.

Hello.

Hi, Mark.

Hello, Mark.

It’s Martha and Grant.

Hey, Martha and Grant.

It’s such an honor to speak to both of you.

That’s great.

So we have Grant comma, Martha comma, and Mark.

So I suppose that you could, although I wouldn’t write it like that.

You wouldn’t?

You leave out the comma before the conjunction.

No, no, normally, well, here, I guess I was taught that you should have a comma before the conjunction.

But I’m seeing it appear in writing less and less often, like the more informal the writing, the less often it appears.

And I’m finding that a lot of my students have also been or have been taught not to include it.

And so they would ask me why there’s a comma there.

And so I would end up with a class like a few of them that have been taught to include it and a few haven’t.

And the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that really this is one of those punctuation rules where my only defense for it was because I was told to do it.

And I’ve always thought that that’s just a really lousy way of explaining punctuation.

I mean, I can see with Martha that there are cases that it could lend to more clarity.

However, I think that there’s really no need to include it, because any time you wanted to increase your clarity, you could find a different way of either phrasing the sentence or structuring it or different wording, or you could use a colon.

So it’s not that I’m against using it, it’s just I don’t think it’s worth teaching.

Mark, you and Martha are teaching different segments of the same class at the same university or college.

Yes.

And you’re both using APA style, that’s the American Psychological Association style, right?

Yes.

Or no?

Okay, you are.

Yes.

All right, so we’re talking about adults.

But let me ask you, do you think that doing it Martha’s way, that is using the comma before the conjunction, just making that your standard practice is going to save your, how should I put this?

Do you’re less sophisticated writers from ever making a mistake of clarity?

No, I’m not convinced that it will.

Okay.

No, I mean, because I struggle with this, because I don’t want to misguide anyone.

But it came down to that it felt like I was spending so much time trying to explain why and how.

And I just thought, you know, in my mind, like if I said, I’m going to the grocery store to buy milk, bread and eggs, the thought there is I’m going to the grocery store to buy milk and bread and eggs.

So the comma is almost performing the function of the conjunction.

And to leave it there is almost kind of redundant.

My Martha and I have discussed this before.

And I generally agree with you, I think that a careful writer will know when to use that comma and when not to use the comma.

I do find, however, that under the influence of my Martha, and she is definitely my Martha, I use that comma before the conjunction more and more, because I’ve begun to see that when I’m rushed, or when my work isn’t well edited by somebody else, that I’m saving potential disaster by going ahead and throwing that comma in there.

And it’s hurting nobody.

I agree 100% with you.

But that’s almost like the few instances where it does seem to help, are almost like the exception that proves the rule.

Okay.

Therefore, I think, you know what, enough of the, a lot of the students are already confused about commas.

Let’s not add one more.

Because I guess from my perspective, I’m thinking that that is the number one question that we get, like, okay, when do I mean, how do we use the comma?

And how do we know if we’re using it correctly?

Yeah, well, I think that that in the earlier part of the 20th century, people were saying when in doubt, leave it out.

And we said the punctuation pendulum kind of swung and people started leaving them out maybe when they shouldn’t have left them out.

But I don’t know, Mark, I have a special place in my heart for this serial comma.

I mean, I guess I’m just so influenced by the story of the pious author who dedicated his book to my parents comma, the Pope and Mother Teresa.

Is that a true story?

That sounds a bit apocryphal.

To the Pope, Mother Teresa and my parents?

Without commas?

No.

Without the comma before the conjunction, yes.

They could have and they would have avoided that mistake.

Yes.

If they’d have been a more careful writer, yes.

Yeah.

I imagine that book wasn’t a bestseller.

Yeah, I mean, it may well be an apocryphal story, but I think that there’s a lesson, even in apocryphal stories, Grant.

I mean, and the other one that caught my eye recently because you see the serial comma less and less in journalism, for sure.

You’re right about that, Mark.

I mean, it’s dropping out of…

Well, it’s AP Associated Press style says don’t use it.

Right.

But then in Time magazine not that long ago, I was reading about a church that had 3500 members comma, a full choir comma, a violinist and long stemmed roses in the bathroom.

A violinist and long stemmed roses in the bathroom of the church.

A comma there would have clarified everything.

As I said, I think it’s like good vibes that you can send them to somebody and it won’t hurt and it just might help.

I think it’s a safety net.

But Mark, I don’t want to get to the wrong idea here.

I would say from the larger issue, I’m so pleased that you’re considering this issue and how to teach it to your students.

Oh, sure.

It’s not something to be taken for granted.

Commas are difficult.

I mean, there are many more things that are more difficult in the world.

But if you can get commas right, you’re on your way to being a good writer.

Well, harrumph.

It seems to me you can always get those commas right by inserting a serial comma every single time.

Use this little gem consistently and you’ll never have to dither over whether to put it in or leave it out.

It’s like dropping your house keys in the very same place every time you come home so you’ll never have to hunt for them.

It’s simple common sense.

Well, that’s my opinion anyway.

What do you think?

Send your thoughts to words@waywordradio.org or stop by our discussion forum.

You’ll find that at waywordradio.org.

For Way with Words, I’m Martha Barnette.

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