A bunch of Apostrophe's

[Mr Tea]

Did you notice the misused apostrophe in the title? Of course you did! Unless you are the person who penned the recent 'New Year Update!' mailout to MACOSX.COM members, in which case you might well have missed it.

Sorry to be a pedant, but the phrase "Lot's of great people, all fanatical about Mac's" should not have any apostrophes in it. The only place you need an apostrophe before the final 's' is the possessive form (showing that something 'belongs' to someone or something else - eg, "Jim's Macs"; "The Mac's USB port").

Some authorities (the NYT) consider it acceptable to place an apostrophe in a plural when a set of initials is being pluralised (eg, DVD's, WMD's) citing legibility as the reason for this deeply questionable practice, but at least they are consistent in their usage. A phrase like "Lot's of rumors" has no punctuational logic at all - if you're going to stick an apostrophe in "lot's", then at least go the whole hog and stick one in "rumors" as well.

This has been a public service announcement.

[CaptainQuark]

HEAR HEAR!

A man after my own pedantic, anally retentive heart! But where do you stand on the thorny issue of the Oxford Comma?

[Gerard McLean]

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

From the jacket of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The zero tolerance approach to punctuation by Lynne Truss.

Should be required reading by ANYONE who sends out email broadcasts. Especially soccer coaches and programmers.

Amazon.com

G.

[Gerard McLean]

Ah, the Oxford comma. Eats, shoots, and leaves. Even more entertaining :-)

G.

[CaptainQuark]

Originally Posted by Gerard McLean

From the jacket of Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The zero tolerance approach to punctuation by Lynne Truss.

I once made the mistake of reading that book in a café. I was asked to leave by a waiter who said that my laughing out loud was disturbing the other patrons!

[Mr Tea]

To my eternal chagrin, CaptainQuark, I was entirely unaware of the term 'Oxford Comma' until I read your reply to my post. Fortunately, this is 2005, I am online, and there is Google. Within seconds, I had access to 54,988,046,221 potential sources of information with which to rectify my ignorance (truly we live in an age of wonders); I made straight for the horse's mouth, where I found a clear (if somewhat partisan) explanation.

So, in answer to your question, yes: I wholeheartedly embrace the Oxford Comma (but sometimes have to wash my hands afterwards).

[CaptainQuark]

Mr Tea… I'm disappointed! You bad, bad man! The Oxford Comma is an evil, wicked and nasty phenomenon, the use of which should be punishable by death. It is, in fact, almost as evil a crime as splitting the infinitive!

[Mr Tea]

Originally Posted by CaptainQuark

You bad, bad man!

What!? *splutter* Parentheses at dawn, sir!

You can take away my livelihood, sell my family into slavery, but I will never, never accept that the Oxford Comma should be universally proscribed.

While such a comma would be extraneous, egregious even, in simple constructions such as "ham, egg, and chips", I am entirely certain that confusion (and, quite possibly, indigestion) would result if the final comma were to be lost from "aperitifs, seafood bisque, wild Scottish smoked salmon dressed with lemon and coriander sauce, and egg custard".

Linguistic sophistication sometimes requires a level of fine-tuning that only the Oxford Comma can provide – although I accept that those who live a simple, monosyllabic intellectual life are probably better off without it.

Despite your unseemly suggestion that I should face execution without appeal for defending this unfairly maligned sub-spieces, I feel that I owe you a debt of gratitude for bringing the matter to my attention. I shall make it my business to use at least one a day from now on, constructing lists of such byzantine complexity that only a well-placed 'Oxford' can render them comprehensible, and that's a promise.