11 April 2008

Cringe-making

O.M.G. I am forced to laugh at myself or I shall go mad.

I'm working on edits for The Ballad of Jimothy Redwing. I have learned it's not Samhain house style to use the Oxford (a.k.a. serial) comma. Okay. This shouldn't be a big deal, right? I mean, unless you're a lawyer, the Oxford comma goes in and out of fashion with some regularity. It's out right now; it'll come back in again at some point; then it'll be right back out again. And yet... It is so ingrained in me to use it that it is literally making me cringe when I try to delete it. I can't make myself do it yet and I've been trying off and on all morning. I think tomorrow night, maybe, with a big glass of wine to dull the pain, maybe... Meantime I'm flinching like Gollum when he's faced with anything Elvish: It hurts us, Precioussss. It hurtsss usssss!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

LOL Maia, I have an idea - actually it's my husbands idea. He suggested I put an envelop in the back of all my books so that when people discover a place where a comma doesn't belong or some other punctuation doesn't belong they can place it in the envelop to save for those places that NEED that particular chicken scratch (punctuation mark) to make it readable. I do understand about removing them OUCH!
Billie A Williams

Maia Strong said...

I think that's a fabulous idea! LOL! I'm sure there's some Law of Conservation of Commas, but I'm such a commaholic I can't be objective about it. For my little brain, the clarification provided by an Oxford comma is always needed.