{"id":143,"date":"2016-10-14T08:30:38","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T12:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/?p=143"},"modified":"2016-10-21T08:19:20","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T12:19:20","slug":"on-commas-and-grammar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/blog\/2016\/10\/14\/on-commas-and-grammar\/","title":{"rendered":"On commas and grammar"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_144\" style=\"width: 772px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.grammarly.com\/blog\/what-is-the-oxford-comma-and-why-do-people-care-so-much-about-it\/http:\/\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-144\" class=\"size-full wp-image-144\" src=\"http:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-10-05-at-10.20.02-AM.png\" alt=\"I have little trust in people who don't use the Oxford comma.\" width=\"762\" height=\"410\" srcset=\"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-10-05-at-10.20.02-AM.png 762w, https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Screen-Shot-2016-10-05-at-10.20.02-AM-300x161.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 762px) 100vw, 762px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-144\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">From grammarly.com<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I admit it. I am obsessed with grammar and usage. I own all four editions of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Fowlers-Modern-English-Usage-Burchfield\/dp\/0198610211\">Fowler<\/a>, and I also own <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Modern-American-Usage-Wilson-Follett\/dp\/080900139X\">Follett<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Garners-Modern-English-Usage-Garner\/dp\/B01E922R0A\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475676995&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=garner%27s+modern+english+usage\">Garner<\/a>, two or three editions of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Elements-Style-Third-William-Strunk\/dp\/0205191584\/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1475677035&amp;sr=1-7&amp;keywords=strunk+and+white\">Strunk and White<\/a>, and many other usage manuals. I am also a big fan of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.grammarly.com\/blog\/what-is-the-oxford-comma-and-why-do-people-care-so-much-about-it\/\">Oxford comma<\/a>. So I was pleased to see Kathleen Parker&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/do-commas-still-matter\/2016\/10\/04\/afed2c72-8a74-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html?utm_term=.e5ce7b62e22c&amp;wpisrc=nl_draw&amp;wpmm=1\">column in <em>The Washington Post<\/em><\/a> last week. Here&#8217;s why:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[Grammar] matters because good grammar conveys a great deal about a person.<\/p>\n<p>Quality is in the details \u2014 and attention to commas, semicolons, dangling participles, gerunds and the proper placement of quotation marks says to the reader that this person is careful, considerate (because bad grammar is painful to the discerning eye), and (there\u2019s that Oxford comma) competent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGrammar is credibility,\u201d says Amanda Sturgill, an associate professor of communications at Elon University, where I recently spoke. \u201cIf you\u2019re not taking care of the small things, people assume you\u2019re not taking care of the big things.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I admit it. I am obsessed with grammar and usage. I own all four editions of Fowler, and I also own Follett, Garner, two or three editions of Strunk and&#8230; <a class=\"read-more-button\" href=\"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/blog\/2016\/10\/14\/on-commas-and-grammar\/\">Read more &gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}