Thoughts on the Oxford Comma

Learning the Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) was one of the few memories I have of learning the rules of grammar or punctuation before seventh grade. In second grade, we were learning the correct way to write a list and we were told that the final comma before an "and" (the Oxford comma) was optional, but was coming into broader usage and thus should probably be employed.

e.g. I can read English, Latin[,] and Classical Greek.

The bracketed comma is an Oxford comma. I have always rather liked the Oxford comma, partially because it can clarify the meaning of a sentence. The Oxford Dictionaries provides this illustrative example:

e.g. These items are available in black and white, red and yellow, and blue and green.

According to an article on Salon, the Oxford PR department has decided to drop the Oxford comma (although the "Update" claims that this has been true for several years). As a fan, I am rather sad.

I found while Googling the Oxford comma that a band called Vampire Weekend wrote a song called "Oxford Comma" (which apparently those at Salon found as well). It's a rather random song, but I thought it was an amusing conclusion.

Vocabulary Geek Update

Apparently Servia heard about a similar feature to the one I discusses in yesterday's blogpost: Merriam-Webster's website is introducing called the Word of the Year, which uses the same trends to find the word people looked up most that was applicable to the years events. This year's World of the Year, according to the NPR piece she sent me, is "austerity."

Vocabulary Geek: Digital Dictionaries

I am a big fan of the family's hardcover version of the OED, but there are some cool features to the new world of electronic and online dictionaries that are springing up all around us. Some of the best new applications, of course, are things like the Online (or CD-Rom) Oxford English Dictionary, which mean that one does not have to cart around a gigantic volume.

Of course with the digital age there are myriad free dictionaries online, both tratitional and specialty, and even those for the purpose of understanding slang and euphemisms, like Urban Dictionary. The ones that stand out to me are the ones that provide something new, yet preserve the love of language inherent in a dictionary. For example, the Kindle has integrated the dictionary into all kindle documents (including those downloaded from places like Project Gutenberg) so that one can simply look up a word while reading. The Kindle comes standard with the The New Oxford American Dictionary, but this can be replaced by buying another dictionary, such as the Kindle OED, and reading the Kindle manual for instructions. It can also be replaced by a dictionary in another language if that is your primary reading language. On the newest version of the Kindle (Kindle 3), even PDF documents allow for dictionary look-up.  Unfortunately this feature cannot be employed at the same time as the text-to-speech feature, but that may be solved in later versions.

What caught my eye this morning was a new (or at least new to me) feature on Meriam-Webster's website. The dictionary takes statistics from those who view the website in order to see what words are "trending" and then people on staff try to account for that trend based on recent events. Three examples from the recent week are the words: mercurial, tawdry, and vitriol. I thought this was a fabulous way to connect news, the unique platform that websites have to check statistics, and fun English vocabulary.