I agree with Stacy McCain in the importance of proper grammar and punctuation. In a short piece posted today he writes:
There’s probably no connection. On the other hand, maybe my insistence on proper spelling, punctuation and grammar — even in such informal contexts as Twitter and text-messaging — is evidence of a traditionalist predisposition.
Bravo! But I would make one change. My tradition-bound punctuation propensity would have included the so-called Harvard comma in
… proper spelling, punctuation, and grammar …
Actually, it’s so-called the Oxford comma. Either way, as a modern erudition it still offends my classical grammatical sensibilities.
I wasn’t aware that they taught using that comma at Ole Miss.
In fact, I wasn’t aware that they taught using any commas at Ole Miss! As amusing as this post is for me, in all seriousness I couldn’t follow the connection you were trying to make to Ole Miss. Would you care to elaborate?
Ole Miss is the big school in Oxford, isn’t it?
Don’t matter what you call it, it’s extra, superfluous, unneeded – like most products of Harvard.
Oh, let’s just call it the serial comma.
Thank you! Simplicity