
And this strikes me as a good place to discuss the serial comma.
The serial comma, for those of you who are not hung up on minutiae, is the comma used before a coordinating conjunction (usually the word "and") just before the final item in a list of three or more things. For example, "Winkin, Blinkin and Nod" does not contain a serial comma, whereas "Winkin, Blinkin, and Nod" does. You can see the difference.
The serial comma is a cry for help. It screams "STOP ME BEFORE I PAUSE AGAIN!" The serial comma is also known as the Oxford Comma, and I was taught by my fourth grade teacher to use, instead, the Cambridge Emptiness, a blank, comma-less space just before the coordinating conjunction and final item in a list. "Winkin, Blinkin and Nod" contains the Cambridge Emptiness, and, as my teacher explained, using fewer commas makes books substantially lighter, and therefore school book-bags less heavy, resulting in fewer cases of scoliosis in the young. It also saves millions of gallons of printer's ink over the course of a year, at a time when world stockpiles are dangerously low and environmentalists have all but shut down exploratory drilling. |
I knew enough not to argue that the company logo itself proudly displays the Cambridge Emptiness.