Now that I have made a style decision with regard to the capitalization of my blog posts, it is time to tackle my great nemesis, the comma.
I am certain it is no secret to regular readers of my blogs, that I have an unhealthy love affair with the comma. I have been operating under the if you pause, stick in a comma method.
"Not so fast", says Mignon Fogarty, author of Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing.
Now, understanding the proper use of the comma is a much more lengthy topic than title capitalization. Therefore, I am going to break my comma lessons up into several posts.
In the first post we are going to cover the serial comma. The serial comma is the comma that comes before the final conjunction in a list. For example:
Aardvark and Squiggly love chocolate, hiking, and fishing.
The serial comma is placed right before the conjunction "and", whereas some would prefer to construct the sentence without the serial comma:
Aardvark and Squiggly love chocolate, hiking and fishing.
Grammar Girl instructs the use of the serial comma to prevent confusion. For example:
To my parents, Sally Smith and God.
or:
To my parents, Sally Smith, and God.
In the first example, you might think that the parents are Sally Smith and God, rather than: my parents, Sally Smith, and God.
I can recall a number of times wondering whether to stick that last comma in my sentences. I am happy to now have a policy to use it, and avoid confusion.
I am going to be doing some blogging for a large organization soon, and their style guide leaves the serial comma up to a case, by case decision. For me, I like to keep it simple. Therefore, the serial comma will become my steady friend.
In my next punctuation review, we will move to the adjective comma. Are you excited?
Are you a regular user of the serial comma?
