Do not economize on the commas
And another thing. Why have journalists stopped using a closing comma after an interpolated explanation or detail or the like? The Telegraph journalist who wrote the piece about the Hope Not Hate guy skipped one in the second paragraph and I sneakily put it in because it’s NECESSARY.
Like so: Fiona Parker wrote:
“Nick Lowles, chief executive of Hope Not Hate used Twitter on Saturday night to claim there had been reports of an acid attack in Middlesbrough.”
WHY??
There obviously has to be a comma after “chief executive of Hope Not Hate” to close the interjection that started with “chief executive.” Why the hell do so many reporters leave it out? Pig ignorance or is it some kind of bizarre illiterate journalistic edict from the editorial department?
It drives me nuts.
Drives me nuts as well Ophelia. Many professional plain language educators seem very on board with doing away with punctuation. generally when I express frustration they rephrase the work I’m complaining about very nicely. They universally hate punctuation in bulleted/numbered lists though. Problem is that less skilled writers just take on the message that punctuation is old fashioned nonsense that slows you down – and then produce dross as a result.
Hm, I wonder if maybe there is some way to spam links to a digital copy of “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” to journalists? Some sort of mass email? Or a way to reserve copies at their local libraries in their names? Unfortunately sending them all back to remedial English classes would cost far more than I have :-/
I feel like there’s a kind of reverse scope creep going on with commas: more and more they’re becoming optional. (Or is it, “more and more, they’re becoming optional”? See, even I’ve lost track!) Maybe it’s got something to do with the idea that we now write sentences that are structured more like the way we speak, with the parts of phrase jumbled in the “wrong” order? Strict grammar says that this calls for a machine-gun spray of commas, but we’ve collectively decided to cut back on the ammo so that the sentences don’t look so bullet-riddled with the little ticks. Or something like that. I think even the pedantic New Yorker style guide has recently endorsed cutting back on commas in some cases.
Nevertheless, I don’t think the closing comma that ends an aside is one that can ever be skipped. Psychologically, it leaves us stuck on the side track, wondering if we’ll ever get back to the main point.
You want a serious answer? It’s because a decision was made during the eighties and nineties to deprioritise grammar in relation to other things in the curriculum. (That’s not an unreasonable decision in itself, I guess – there’s only so many hours in the day after all – though one wonders how much deprioritisation is warranted.) The upshot was a generation that never really learned how to parse a sentence – and that generation is now teaching the kids.
Add to that an educational culture, and a wider culture, in which reading for leisure is squeezed out in favour of ends-directed reading, or not reading at all, and you have a generation that genuinely doesn’t know how language works, and that is profoundly uncomfortable with the language. As long as the right words are on the page in some order, then it’s assumed that the message and the sense are there. It’s profoundly inelegant at best; but it militates against clarity. I see it in student essays all the time: punctuation is thrown about like confetti, presumably on the basis that as long as it’s on the page somewhere it’ll do the trick. Oh, and semi-colons make you look clever, so it’s a good idea to chuck some of those in. Don’t worry about where: as long as they’re there, you’re golden.
And then add the idea that even asserting the existence of correct and incorrect grammar is prescriptivism and therefore bad.
And then add on social norms against correcting grammar, because who wants to be a grammar nazi?
And then add the woke perspective that grammar is oppressive, because who wants to be a nazi?
When learning to read, first we say words, learn pronunciation and meaning, and read aloud. Then as we progress, we learn how to read silently, but have a voice in our heads saying what is written. Then as we advance, we read silently and this narrative voice disappears and we can read much more smoothly. Bad writing wakes up this inner voice any time we stumble on a bad bit of writing. Unless the reading is purposely analytical, which is valuable in it’s own right, reading shouldn’t be so clunky as to wake up this inner voice, not often anyway. Encountering words we don’t know, or simply rereading a paragraph for the pleasure of it is different than stumbling on bad punctuation or bad syntax. I think how frustrating it is depends on how much and what a person has read in their life. The inner reading voice can be annoying, but I’d rather have that intrusion than become immune to bad writing. I’m always happy to have something I’ve missed pointed out as well. Good editing isn’t always obvious, but it sure makes reading more enjoyable.
Ahahahahahahaha I forgot all about Eats, Shoots & Leaves.
Hm, I was never able to get rid of the inner voice. But then, my internal monologue is omnipresent, even when I’m in a flow state.
Maybe you’re in constant analysis mode NiV. I seem to be more so with nonfiction, but a good novel will sweep me away rather cinematically, and it’s as if I’m not seeing the words at all (barring any clunkiness).
Partly, as Enzyme writes, the demotion of grammar in some education systems.
Also, partly, the lack of rigour in the higher ed institutions where teachers are trained.
And, finally, when it comes to the print media, the hollowing out of newsrooms and the mass firing of subbies, the people whose job it was to catch and correct these errors. Assembling a Newspaper with all the tech in today’s newsrooms is so much easier and faster than in the old handset, hot metal, or linotype days, and yet the ability to write clearly and concisely vanished.
(I hope I haven’t used my daily quota of commas on one post).
You can take allllllll the commas you want.
I guess what I’m asking is why tf don’t they see it themselves? How does that missing comma not feel like a broken tooth to them? How do they not know how to write or read?
I’ve had to deal with the comma issue periodically when writing technical documents. There you definitely need clarity.
I wonder if the grammar autocorrect feature of word processing programs contributes to the problem. People accept the suggestion or correction without thinking about it, accepting it because computer.