Hot, and bothered
Overheard today from someone who will soon release her first novel under a Harlequin imprint: “The thing that bugs me is that their house style does not include the use of the serial comma before the word ‘and’.”
Myself, I hate a bodice-ripper with misplaced hyphens.
I, also dislike the serial comma before ‘and’. Logically silly to want one there. For example, when making a grocery list how is one item distinguished from the next one? Let’s assume a ‘carriage return’ or ‘new line’ and perhaps a ‘bullet’. What happens when one gets to the final item on the list? Do we give it special / additional markings to FURTHER distinguish it from the preceding item? Of course not. Now suppose instead we write the list as a sentence - how distinguish the last item? In my view there should be only a comma as in all preceding items OR the use of the word ‘and’ (or possibly the word ‘or’ if the list is one of conditional items instead of declarative ones). The use of ‘and’ is (I feel) a mark of respect to the reader: it informs the reader that this is the end of the list. Use of only a comma implies that the list could be ongoing. So WHY have both!? It only muddies the intent of the writer, I think.
Thanks for posting the note Jennifer. I’ll drop you a line if you are in fact who I think you are. Have a great week, everyone!
P.S. note my use of the silly comma in my opening line (preceding comment). I just put it in there to show how silly a misplaced comma looks.