Blood, Sweat, Toil, Tears, and Big Shoes (or, as they’d say in Britain, “Blood, Sweat, Toil, Tears and Big Shoes; doesn’t it seem odd that the BRITISH don’t use the Oxford comma?)
I don’t think there is any more to it than a clown version of the famous statue of Churchill in Parliament Square.
And now I really want to know what Bill thought of Darkest Hour.
Could Rubin have mixed up Churchill and Roosevelt, and this is a
statue showing a big stick?
Arthur, it was Teddy Roosevelt with the big stick, not FDR.
“doesn’t it seem odd that the BRITISH don’t use the Oxford comma?”
Depends on what you mean by “use”.
One way of thinking about an “Oxford comma” is that it’s the one that is there, but you can’t see it. That’s what makes an “Oxford comma” a different thing from an ordinary comma.
JP, the Oxford comma *is* seen. It’s the British term for a
serial comma, and it shows up where some people think it
oughtn’t. (A linguist friend of mine said that there are two
kinds of style guides: those that require the serial comma and
those that are wrong.)
It actually makes sense for them to call it the Oxford comma.
Most British style guides do not suggest using it, but Oxford
Press does. Thus, the Oxford comma
It’s called the Oxford comma because it’s mandated by the Oxford University Press style guide. No reason why the rest of England has to follow that guide.
James Pollock, that’s a rather confusing way of thinking of the Oxford comma, particularly for those of us who use it.
“James Pollock, that’s a rather confusing way of thinking of the Oxford comma, particularly for those of us who use it.”
If you say so. A decade’s worth of my students didn’t seem to find it so.
There’s a recent court case that hinged on whether that “missing” comma had legal effect. It wound up costing someone $5 million.
For some reason, the Oxford comma came up in the middle of, of all things, a calculus course. The instructor maintained that that final comma should be explicitly present. The logic went like this: Some people find that comma to be optional. Some do not. So your choice is to rely on the style guide that says it’s optional, and hope that 100% of your audience is familiar with the fact that at least one style guide says it’s optional. If any of your audience ISN’T aware of that rule, they think you made a mistake. Do you want any of your audience to think you made a mistake? No? Then put that comma in.
When I was an advertising proofreader in the 1980s, the official style was No Oxford Comma (unless necessary for clarity of meaning, of course). The claim was that it felt more modern that way, and made the copy seem lighter and breezier.
I really want to hear what Bill has to say about The Darkest Hour, but please wait a week or two. I’m planning to see it Tuesday.
Didn’t Bloom County have a campaign about retaining the Oxford comma fairly recently?
True story: I had a friend who was a professor in Scotland. At one point, when we were discussing the fact that nobody she knew used the Oxford Comma, I told her why it was so rarely used in Britain: back in the day, authors had to pay for the printing of their own books, and printers charged them from every letter, including punctuation characters, so that final comma fell out of common use.
She passed this along to some of her peers.
I just assumed she knew I was kidding, and when she found out, she was not amused. At all. Not even a little bit.
Well, Pago Pago is only Pago Pago because the printboxes only had so many N’s in them, and they decided they needed them elsewhere.
re
Didn’t Bloom County have a campaign about retaining the Oxford comma fairly recently?
Yes. It was the entire (?) platform of the Meadow Party in the last presidential election. I forget if Opus or Bill the Cat was the candidate this time around (they tend to trade off).
I’ve heard worse ideas for a political platform I could vote for, although my heart of hearts would belong to one that discouraged use of the phrase “one of the only.”
How soon we forget! Two spaces after the period! THAT was the platform!
re
How soon we forget! Two spaces after the period! THAT was the platform!
*********
Splitter!
(Sigh. You’re right. Sorry.)
That’s “splittist”. HTH.
… i really hate two spaces after periods
The only people whose opinions on the Oxford Comma I respect are my parents, William Strunk and E.B. White.
But if Churchill had been a clown, wouldn’t the statue in that location be of Hitler?
Comics I Don't Understand 
I don’t think there is any more to it than a clown version of the famous statue of Churchill in Parliament Square.
And now I really want to know what Bill thought of Darkest Hour.
Could Rubin have mixed up Churchill and Roosevelt, and this is a
statue showing a big stick?
Arthur, it was Teddy Roosevelt with the big stick, not FDR.
“doesn’t it seem odd that the BRITISH don’t use the Oxford comma?”
Depends on what you mean by “use”.
One way of thinking about an “Oxford comma” is that it’s the one that is there, but you can’t see it. That’s what makes an “Oxford comma” a different thing from an ordinary comma.
JP, the Oxford comma *is* seen. It’s the British term for a
serial comma, and it shows up where some people think it
oughtn’t. (A linguist friend of mine said that there are two
kinds of style guides: those that require the serial comma and
those that are wrong.)
It actually makes sense for them to call it the Oxford comma.
Most British style guides do not suggest using it, but Oxford
Press does. Thus, the Oxford comma
It’s called the Oxford comma because it’s mandated by the Oxford University Press style guide. No reason why the rest of England has to follow that guide.
James Pollock, that’s a rather confusing way of thinking of the Oxford comma, particularly for those of us who use it.
“James Pollock, that’s a rather confusing way of thinking of the Oxford comma, particularly for those of us who use it.”
If you say so. A decade’s worth of my students didn’t seem to find it so.
There’s a recent court case that hinged on whether that “missing” comma had legal effect. It wound up costing someone $5 million.
For some reason, the Oxford comma came up in the middle of, of all things, a calculus course. The instructor maintained that that final comma should be explicitly present. The logic went like this: Some people find that comma to be optional. Some do not. So your choice is to rely on the style guide that says it’s optional, and hope that 100% of your audience is familiar with the fact that at least one style guide says it’s optional. If any of your audience ISN’T aware of that rule, they think you made a mistake. Do you want any of your audience to think you made a mistake? No? Then put that comma in.
When I was an advertising proofreader in the 1980s, the official style was No Oxford Comma (unless necessary for clarity of meaning, of course). The claim was that it felt more modern that way, and made the copy seem lighter and breezier.
I really want to hear what Bill has to say about The Darkest Hour, but please wait a week or two. I’m planning to see it Tuesday.
Didn’t Bloom County have a campaign about retaining the Oxford comma fairly recently?
True story: I had a friend who was a professor in Scotland. At one point, when we were discussing the fact that nobody she knew used the Oxford Comma, I told her why it was so rarely used in Britain: back in the day, authors had to pay for the printing of their own books, and printers charged them from every letter, including punctuation characters, so that final comma fell out of common use.
She passed this along to some of her peers.
I just assumed she knew I was kidding, and when she found out, she was not amused. At all. Not even a little bit.
Well, Pago Pago is only Pago Pago because the printboxes only had so many N’s in them, and they decided they needed them elsewhere.
re
Didn’t Bloom County have a campaign about retaining the Oxford comma fairly recently?
Yes. It was the entire (?) platform of the Meadow Party in the last presidential election. I forget if Opus or Bill the Cat was the candidate this time around (they tend to trade off).
I’ve heard worse ideas for a political platform I could vote for, although my heart of hearts would belong to one that discouraged use of the phrase “one of the only.”
How soon we forget! Two spaces after the period! THAT was the platform!
re
How soon we forget! Two spaces after the period! THAT was the platform!
*********
Splitter!
(Sigh. You’re right. Sorry.)
That’s “splittist”. HTH.
… i really hate two spaces after periods
The only people whose opinions on the Oxford Comma I respect are my parents, William Strunk and E.B. White.
But if Churchill had been a clown, wouldn’t the statue in that location be of Hitler?