Oxford commas

It was my local authors' lunch yesterday, hence my dereliction of duty regarding a new blog post. After a lovely lunch and much general chatter, we got down to talking about writing. The Oxford comma became a topic. Now I was interested in this because having done edits with more than one US indie publisher, I've noticed how much more frequent is their use of a comma.

I'm not denying commas are important. As Truss says in her book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, a humble comma can change the sense of a sentence. Take for example:
"Verily, I say unto thee, this day thou shalt be with me in Paradise" and compare it to "Verily I say unto thee this day, Thou shalt be with me in Paradise." See how the meaning changes?

The Oxford comma is the one that comes after white in the sentence "The boat is red, white, and blue." In the UK, the standard usage is to omit it. In America, standard usage is to put it in.

Since the comma is one of those markers in language that indicates where the reader

ice fowers

should slow down and pause in order to fully appreciate what is being said, then sometimes the extra comma is useful and sometimes it is not. My own feeling is that quite often one's reaction is no more than noticing something different, something unusual. Americans notice the comma is missing, in the UK we notice there's an extra comma where we wouldn't expect one. Does it destroy the reading enjoyment of the story? Not really. Not for more than half second, anyway.

What I do find confusing is when to use commas joining two complete sentences. When I'm edited in the US, they take out the ones I use, and put in ones I wouldn't, and I can't always see why. In the UK, commas are used with conjunctions such as and, or, but, while and yet. But we never do it with however and nevertheless.

Just to make life even more confusing, there's something called the splice comma.  When the conjunction is omitted and the comma is retained, when it should really be a semi-colon - that's a splice comma. Example: Pansy woke up in an unfamiliar bed, she felt odd. Famous writers like Updike, Beckett, E.M.Forster and Somerset Maugham use it, and get away with it. Used by them, it is considered dashing, poetic and effective, says Truss. Done by those who don't understand the rule, it is awful.

All I can add is that I get very confused when the grammar I learned at school and have used all my life is deemed to be incorrect. I sit here and muse how very different the novels of Nora Roberts would be if her books were put into UK English before they were loosed on the British public. Watch caps and Oreoes? What the hell are they?

English, but for how much longer?

TV news reporters in the UK have developed
a habit of sprinkling their reports with phrases like steppingup to the plate, and asking for ballpark figures. I'm told these are sporting terms, but since I don't know which sports the phrases come from, and certainly don't play them, I have very little idea what they mean. I suspect the former means rising to the challenge, but the latter means less than nothing to me. Sue Barker looked me straight in the eye from a tennis court the other day and bade me Go figure! I'm still wondering what she wanted me to do.
More and more I hear the dreaded off of used, and it won't be long before gotten is ringing in our ears. Already we have the flip side, downtown, and train station. We use cutlery in the UK, not silverware and we don't build our towns in blocks. A sucker, to me, is something that sticks, and not as Obama used it the other day, a turkey. We have waiters, not servers.
I groan at the tv in despair. We have a beautiful language that is capable of expressing so many shades and nuances of meaning, and it is very different to the language spoken by our American friends.
When I'm in America, reading an American novel or watching American tv, I enjoy the differences in language. Their language suits their lifestyle and their philosophy of life.
But in the UK, in my own home, I want to hear British English. The BBC is one of the prime influences on the people of this country and should uphold the fine traditions of our language. If we want the UK's children to grown up speaking good English, then we should make sure they hear it every day via our tv screens.
Speak to your news reporters, please, BBC.