Last year while my daughter was in school, we learned that apparently there are now five oceans.  Thats right, apparently during the time I left school and today, another ocean miraculously appeared.  Some of you might be thinking, "duh" but for those of you that were taught that the four oceans of Earth were the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian & Arctic, that is no longer correct.  The new ocean is called the Southern Ocean and is located below the 60th parallel.  The amusing thing about this was that my daughter's new teacher didn't know this and had to be educated by her.  Some of the text books are also inconsistent because of when they were published.

 

Today, I was schooled by her when I was proofing her homework and she had a comma in front of the word "and".  I tried to correct her and I was overruled by my wife. When did this happen?  I was taught that if you wrote, "Billy, John and Jim" that you don't put a comma before the word and but apparently they now teach that it should read, "Billy, John, and Jim".  Oh and the double space after a sentence doesn't apply anymore.  Grrr...

I'm only 21 and I was taught that there is NO comma before "and". I read a lot and I don't recall seeing commas before "and". Whenever books are published, they're edited by editors who are from the old school - I don't see any reason to change things.

While I agree with you, I found this online:

 

Comma before "and" (Also Known As the Serial Comma)

 

One of the questions we are asked frequently is whether a comma should go before the conjunction "and" in a series of three or more items.  The answer is yes. Although grammar gurus abandoned that comma rule for a while in the twentieth century, we have since realized that using the serial comma (as it is called) is a good idea for two reasons:'

 

First, it prevents misreading.  Consider this sentence, for example:

 

The menu for the class picnic will feature green beans, stewed apples, macaroni and cheese and okra and tomatoes.

 

Without the serial comma, the series items are difficult to see. Here is the same sentence with the serial comma added:

 

The menu for the class picnic will feature green beans, stewed apples, macaroni and cheese, and okra and tomatoes.

 

With the serial comma, the reader can tell easily that the class ate four different dishes, not five or six, as may have been construed without that last comma.

 

They could have just used the "&" symbol, joining macaronie and cheese together. Or is that not PC? Jeez.

David, we like to call that an ampersand!

Well, there are many different styles (MLA or APA) and both have different standards when it comes to commas and the like. For clarity, however, it is better to use a comma when writing something in a series. Also, some teachers will have different guidelines when it comes to punctuation. They also have different standards for typing; some require a double space after a sentence, others don't.

David, we like to call that an ampersand!

 

Glad you're up to date, you know, after learning sanskrit in grade school. :)

I am surprised to hear about the fifth ocean.  However, I was taught to use the comma before the "and." 

I too was always taught to use the comma before and, until I turned in my first rough draft on a college paper. . .

 

Souther Ocean, wtf?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Ocean

 

The Southern Ocean, also known as the Great Southern Ocean, the Antarctic Ocean and the South Polar Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean south of 60° S latitude. The International Hydrographic Organization has designated the Southern Ocean as an oceanic division encircling Antarctica. Geographers disagree on the Southern Ocean's northern boundary or even its existence (see below), sometimes considering the waters part of the South Pacific, South Atlantic, and Indian Oceans instead.

 

The Southern Ocean differs from the other oceans in that its largest boundary, the northern boundary, does not abut any landmass, but merges into the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. This calls into question why geographers should consider the Southern Ocean a separate ocean, as opposed to a southward extension of the other three oceans. One reason stems from the fact that much of the water of the Southern Ocean differs from the water in the other oceans. Because of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, that water gets transported around the Southern Ocean fairly rapidly, so that the water in the Southern Ocean south of, for example, South America, resembles the water in the Southern Ocean south of New Zealand more closely than it resembles the water in the mid-Indian Ocean.

 

I use the serial comma. I was taught that in school, and I was corrected by someone at work years ago. I thought I was crazy. Now I think SHE'S crazy.

I tend to use my commas this way:

 

I had a buffet at lunch today, where I ate cheese, tomatoes and macaroni and cheese.

 

I had a buffet at lunch today, where I ate cheese, tomatoes, macaroni and cheese, and okra and tomatoes.

 

If it becomes too confabulated, an extra comma helps separate out the items.

 

I had to proread Business English papers once for a professor. You would not believe the number who couldn't spell, who used "OMG" and other shorthand commentary in professional documents...

Don't forget ongoing efforts to change AD and BC to CE and BCE, or instead of Civil War the War Between the States or instead of Old Testament and New Testament the Hebrew Scriptures and whatever they came up with instead of New Testament, which I forget.  "They" (whoever they are) seem to have been effective in changing traditional citations to MLA, which sort of makes sense, but wasn't necessary.  In fact, I think it's pretty egotistical since you see the person's last name trumpeted right there in the middle of the paper. 

Pluto's not a planet any more.

 

Half of the dinosaurs are different now. No Brontosaurs or Stegosaurus, and many have different names.

"Celtic" with a soft C became "Celtic with a hard C.

Peking is now Beijing.

Some fools are starting to pronounce Carnegie car-NAY-gee.

 

As for the comma controversy, it seems to me that common pairs should use the "&" as in macaroni & cheese, thus avoiding comma confusion.

I knew about Pluto but no Brontosaurus?  WTF?

It's Istanbul, not Constantinople.

 

Some fools are starting to pronounce Carnegie car-NAY-gee.

 

 

One of those fools was Andrew Carnegie, btw.

No, no, Beijing is Peking again.

 

And Leningrad is St. Petersburg again.

 

Zaire has changed back to "The Congo".

In school, up through college, I was always told that paragraphs should be marked by indentation with no space between paragraphs.  When I went to gradschool, I was the only one who did that.  Everyone used a line break, with no indentation.

The comma rule is a difficult one.  I looked it up in a college paper writing guide I own and it says the commas should be used before and......reason because complex sentences can get confusing when these aren't employed.

 

I know this is true.  When I was working on my firms website, our marketing person kept leaving them out.  Some of the sentences were difficult to follow.

It's Istanbul, not Constantinople.

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam

I was raised on the serial comma, and only in the past couple of years have I adapted to the custom of not using it. That's the way life works; just about the time I adapt to change, someone decides maybe the old way was best, after all.

 

Chastened by ridicule for indenting the first line of a paragraph, I switched to double-spacing with no indentation. Now, what?

 

I fear all this regression to the old ways is an insidious plot to return America to the good old days when government was small, taxes were low, Family Values and the nuclear family ruled, and young American men were dying in droves in filthy trenches and jungles halfway around the world in politically contrived and pointless wars.

 

Along with all that, they could at least give us back the passenger trains we had then.

 

I graduated from high school more than fifty years ago. My education didn't stop there, but you don't get a diploma for what you learn by suffering the consequences of screwing up.

 

</rant>

 

It's Istanbul, not Constantinople.

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam

 

Good Lord! That song was popular when? 1956? The first time I heard it was over the park's PA system while I was selling watermelon slices from the Junior Leaders' stand at the Wells County 4-H Fair around that time. Undoubtedly it was played from a vinyl 33 1/3 rpm record.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi.

Someone's been into the O'Reilly HTML books.

 

I was subjected to two years of Latin in high school, and might have been able to translate that once upon a time. That was a long time ago, though, and a lot has fallen by the wayside through disuse.

There really is just one big ocean

It's Istanbul, not Constantinople.

Even old New York was once New Amsterdam

Good Lord! That song was popular when? 1956?

They Might Be Giants did a boffo cover of Istanbul, not Constantinople back in the 1990s.  It was one of the first CDs I ever bought.  I don't recall if I ever heard the original version.

I knew about Pluto but no Brontosaurus?  WTF?

 

It turns out that "Brontosaurus" was a mixture of two animals' skeletons.  I believe that one was an already classified animal, which is how they eventually discovered the mistake, as they noticed a skull atop the wrong body.  They then corrected the error by eliminating Brontosaurus and naming the "new" animal Apatasaurus.

 

 

As for the serial comma, I ALWAYS use it.  We were taught in school that either form is acceptable (sort of like gray and grey), but I've always thought that the serial comma makes the sentence look cleaner and more readable.  Also, not using it is just plain lazy. :-D

All the years of Latin in the world wouldn't help you Rob:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum

I'm a big fan of the serial comma, just for the clarity.  But I think both ways are fine.

 

I don't think you really use an ampersand when you're writing narratively like that.

 

Some fools are starting to pronounce Carnegie car-NAY-gee.

 

My grandma on my dad's side went to Carnegie Mellon, I heard her say it one time and she said "Car-Nay-Gee". I think that has more to do with accent than anything else.

All the years of Latin in the world wouldn't help you Rob:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum

 

Show how much I forgot. I can't even recognize gibberish when I see it. Sort of like a vast portion of the electorate.

All the years of Latin in the world wouldn't help you Rob:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_ipsum

 

Show how much I forgot. I can't even recognize gibberish when I see it. Sort of like a vast portion of the electorate.

 

I was trying to translate it, but when I came across "nibh" and "zzril" I knew something was amiss, and Google solved the mystery for me...

 

I was trying to translate it, but when I came across "nibh" and "zzril" I knew something was amiss, and Google solved the mystery for me...

OK.  I'm glad I wasn't the only person who had a problem reading/translating that.

I've heard that the double space between sentences traces back to the use of manual typewriters. They didn't have the high degree of control for character spacing like electric typewriters (and computer printers, obviously!) and sometimes the punctuation at the end of one sentence would appear too close to the first letter of the next. The extra space ensured the gap.

I've heard that the double space between sentences traces back to the use of manual typewriters. They didn't have the high degree of control for character spacing like electric typewriters (and computer printers, obviously!) and sometimes the punctuation at the end of one sentence would appear too close to the first letter of the next. The extra space ensured the gap.

 

'Tis true. Every manual typewriter I ever used had monospace type; every keystroke advanced the carriage by the same amount, whether it was a "W" or a period or a spacebar. I learned to type in high school on a Remington manual typewriter, from an old-school, old maid teacher who wore her hair up in a bun and emphasized head up, back straight, shoulders back posture. We had straight-backed armless wooden office chairs. I am not making this up.

 

I'll bet she'd break down sobbing if she saw me now, slouched in a leather chair with my keyboard on a pull-out drawer that's just high enough to clear my legs. And single-spacing after periods. And looking at the keyboard sometimes. I'm still fast and accurate, though.

We were taught in school that either form is acceptable (sort of like gray and grey), but I've always thought that the serial comma makes the sentence look cleaner and more readable.

 

Actually, "Gray" is the proper way in the United States. "Grey" is the British spelling.  Although I am guilty of using the British spelling for "Theatre" on a regular basis instead of the American way of "Theater".

I've heard that the double space between sentences traces back to the use of manual typewriters. They didn't have the high degree of control for character spacing like electric typewriters (and computer printers, obviously!) and sometimes the punctuation at the end of one sentence would appear too close to the first letter of the next. The extra space ensured the gap.

 

Cool!  I never knew that.  I had that double space drilled into me during the age of computers, and didn't have a clue why.

 

We were taught in school that either form is acceptable (sort of like gray and grey), but I've always thought that the serial comma makes the sentence look cleaner and more readable.

 

Actually, "Gray" is the proper way in the United States. "Grey" is the British spelling.  Although I am guilty of using the British spelling for "Theatre" on a regular basis instead of the American way of "Theater".

 

Another thing I didn't know.  I prefer "grey", and have always wondered why I see the obviously inferior "gray" more often.  :wink:

 

What a great thread!

Hmm, I always was taught that the serial comma before the and was optional. Of course, maybe I just had some teachers that didn't know what to do about it.