Breakfast Serial: Musings on the Oxford Comma

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Foxworld

Cup of freshly brewed Folger’s sitting on the table next to me, I’m gazing out the window at a gray October morning and contemplating one of the world’s follies. In the broad scheme of follies, this one is harmless enough. Still, somebody has to ask, “How can the University of Oxford Writing and Style Guide do away with the Oxford comma?”

Also commonly known as the serial comma, the Oxford comma appears just before the coordinating conjunctions and, not, or, and nor as the last comma used in a list. The sentence you just read contains a perfect example.

I’m a fan of the serial comma. It reduces head-scratching considerably, and I’m all for anything that clarifies meaning. For instance, consider the following:

The relationships I value most are with my brothers, Joel and God.

Does anything about that sentence bother you? Unless the writer has a truly extraordinary family, you have to wonder whether she hasn’t taken the fraternal affection thing a bit too far.

The sentence needs fixing.

Serial comma to the rescue! Let’s insert it where it clearly belongs, thus:

The relationships I value most are with my brothers, Joel, and God.

Yes, that will work. Now we’ve got a statement that should disturb no one’s sleep. The serial comma crystallizes the meaning of an otherwise perplexing sentence.

My intention here isn’t to go into all the nuances of serial commas. Why repeat information that Wikipedia already presents so splendidly? No, I’m just musing on the irony of the Oxford style guide’s eschewing the Oxford comma. You’d think that Oxford, of all places, would be a bastion for a punctuation that is its namesake.

To be fair …

The Oxford style guide does allow for the judicious use of the serial comma where it enhances clarity. The guide states:

As a general rule, do not use the serial/Oxford comma: so write ‘a, b and c’ not ‘a, b, and c’. But when a comma would assist in the meaning of the sentence or helps to resolve ambiguity, it can be used – especially where one of the items in the list is already joined by ‘and’:

  They had a choice between croissants, bacon and eggs, and muesli.

There are some cases where the comma is clearly obligatory:

  The bishops of Canterbury, Oxford, Bath and Wells, and Salisbury

So common sense ultimately prevails, and the sudden increase in air pressure you’re now experiencing is the world exhaling a collective sigh of relief. Of course, if you’ve been using the serial comma all along, then you haven’t bothered yourself with such concerns to begin with.

The Chicago Manual of Style recommends the serial comma for a reason: It keeps writers–and readers–out of trouble. Maybe we should rename the Oxford comma, the Chicago comma. I wouldn’t be the first to suggest the switch. Whatever you call it, the serial comma is a sanity saver, and at least in the United States, I don’t think it’s going to disappear anytime soon.

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The Fires of Autumn

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Foxworld

[singlepic id=32 w=320 h=240 float=left]Long before they’re raked into piles and burned, the leaves of October go up in flames. Beginning with the wetlands and with woods edges flecked with crimson and yellow, the torch of autumn moves steadily across the Michigan landscape, igniting the scarlet maples and lighting up groves of glowing sassafrass like Japanese lanterns.

I love early fall in Michigan, and I regret seeing it fade from its gaiety into the gray onset of the cold season. So I thought I’d share a couple of photographs I took earlier this month. Click on them to enlarge [singlepic id=33 w=320 h=240 float=right]them. The first photo shares a view from the island in Grand Ledge, west of Lansing. The second captures the sweep of the shoreline at Otis Lake in the outbacks of Barry County.

As the winds of October’s second half snuff out the fires of its first, I hope these images of the color at its peak will brighten your day.

 

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The One Word That Grabs and Keeps Your Customer’s Attention

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Foxworld

If a single word could instantly connect you with the person who reads your Web content or sales literature, what do you think that word would be?

Here are two clues:

  1. In grade school English, they taught you not to use it in your writing.
  2. By the time you’ve finished reading this sentence, you’ll have already encountered it in various forms seven times in this post.

Clever you—you guessed it, didn’t you! That’s right, the word in question is . . .

YOU!

Yes, “you.” Say it a few times. Roll it around in your mouth and savor its brevity. Its directness. Very importantly, its ability to personalize a message in a single, crisp syllable.

Remember how, somewhere in or before high school English, you were taught to avoid using the second-person pronoun? Scrap that rule. It may apply to writing a research paper but not when it comes to selling your product. Compare the following two benefit statements:

  • Imagine how great one will look and feel once one has trimmed off 10 pounds–in just two weeks!
  • Imagine how great you’ll look and feel once you’ve trimmed off 10 pounds–in just two weeks!

The first example sounds just plain ridiculous, doesn’t it. The second is more like how people actually talk. More like how you talk—and how you want to be talked to. That’s good copy. Like a chat with a friend over coffee, it has a conversational immediacy that engages you from the get-go.

“You” Is a Mindset That Puts Your Reader First

That’s the real power of the second-person pronoun: it makes your target reader the star of the show.

How many business websites have you visited where the content is all about the company and its products? You can read about the company’s mission, history, clients, and awards. You can get plenty of specs about its widgets. What you don’t get is the sense that the company cares about you, because its copy is all about them. It is filled with we, our, and us—but where do you fit in?

You-centric copy, on the other hand, prioritizes the reader and his or her needs, interests, and emotions. It does more than merely inform; it also connects.

Why is this important? Well, let’s say you go out one night with a date who spends the evening telling you about his job, his new car, his hobbies, his achievements, his house, his vacation, his this, his that. A few days later you again do dinner, this time with someone else who seems genuinely interested in you—what activities you enjoy, where you went to school, what childhood memories you treasure, what makes you happy.

Which person bored the crap out of you and which scored a big hit?

Good copy is about your target audience. Am I saying you shouldn’t talk about yourself? Of course not. The person reading your copy obviously wants to know about you and your product or service. But that person’s interest rises from an underlying question: What’s in it for me? In the back of her mind, that’s what your reader is always wondering. You-centric copy engages your reader on a personal level in order to answer that question sentence by sentence. It makes your customer, not your business, the center of your sales message. It demonstrates that you understand your target reader’s needs and will meet them in ways guaranteed to delight.

And ultimately, it generates the results you desire.

Congratulations! Your evening out was a ten-star hit! And yes, your date will go out with you again. Definitely, heck yes.

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