Much is being said of the Oxford comma recently and if it is really needed but what if the comma is going the way of the Dodo bird? Is the prominent punctuation mark becoming completely unnecessary? Matthew Malady at Slate seems to think so.
“That may sound crazy to folks who bristle at Oxford comma problems or enjoy pointing out that life without commas could result in lots of sentences like “let’s eat grandma.” But support for McWhorter’s contention isn’t tough to unearth. We needn’t look any further than our beloved cellphones and computer screens. We’re dropping commas more than ever because so much of our daily writing now consists of quick text messages and hastily typed emails. We’re also engaging in frequent IM discussions and drafting lots of sub-140-character tweets. Commas don’t thrive in those environs.”
Read the rest here.
