The Grammar Slam: The Oxford Comma.

Maybe you have heard of it; the elusive and legendary comma that has always been classified as 'optional.'  In a list, the Oxford comma, or serial comma, precedes the coordinating conjunction (usually and or or), effectively separating the final two items in a list.

No doubt you have been programmed, like all the mindless grammar robots turned out by the school systems in this great nation, to disregard this last comma.  However, the Oxford comma is imperative to correctly interpreting the meaning of sentences.

If the last two objects in a list are unrelated -- like genocide and Portugal -- then the Oxford comma proves less vital.  *I'm only afraid of breakfast nooks, genocide and Portugal.*  With or without the comma, the meaning is unchanged because genocide and Portugal are obviously two separate fears.  The comma does become important, however, when the two items are somewhat related and could be considered an appositive.  Let's say I have disdain for Kim Jong-il and Hillary Clinton.  *I have nothing but the utmost contempt for my parents, Kim Jong-il and Hillary Clinton.*  Are my parents Kim Jong-il and Hillary Rodham Clinton?  Of course not, that would effectively make me the anti-Christ, but it's still confusing.

Try to decipher these sentences.  Do they need an Oxford comma or are they appositives?    

• My brother had a great time at the party with his new friends, a race horse and a dwarf.
• Charlie loves his wife, a school teacher and a poet.
• I absolutely will not involve myself with these condiments, nutmeg and convicted murderers.
• I wish I had the time to do what I love, get drunk and eat bacon.
• There are many things on this earth we should be thankful for, some we should condemn and others forget.  
• It would be nice if I had more time for my dogs, Hamlet and Goose.  

Take time for the Oxford comma; it could change your world, Wisconsin and Southern France.

Jamie Michelle

We've Been Fearing in the Past.

Monday morning, Harvard Professor Dr. Mark Landon stumbled across a filing cabinet filled with research of a forgotten study the University had been conducting.  In April 1791, a Harvard study over the human propensity to fear began with a simple survey and has been an ongoing, if somewhat forgotten, project until last Tuesday.

Started by a group of students, the study sought to find not only what people were most afraid of but how the brain processes and develops fear.  First presented around the campus, the survey contained a simple open-answer question, "What do you fear?"  The responses varied widely until a large base of information was collected.  And then the tallying began.

For decades, the results were collected, disputed and filed while researchers tried to develop theories about the brain's decision of fear and its fear-based choices.  The study fell to the wayside when researchers found they were no closer to an answer than they had been centuries ago and were not likely to find any conclusive results.  As of Friday, no further information on the researcher's conclusions about the human brain were released, but, after a long rest in a filing cabinet, the survey was closed and the results were published via The Harvard Review. . .  Which is read by no one.

The most interesting of the results are as follows, from most to least feared:

• The fear of having one's children accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. 
• The fear of being spirited away by nymphs or faeries.
• Nuclear War. 
•  Whigs.
• The fear of being overcome with the vapors as a result of an invigorating, puritanical sermon.
• The fear of an amputation wound getting infected. 
• Inguns.
• Walk-men.
• Slave uprisings.
• The headless horseman in the next town.
• Cats.
• Repercussions of the Civil War. 
• The black mold growing in the corner of the shower.
• Vehicles/Witchcraft.
• Hitler.
• Smelling salts.
• Flappers/Women's Rights.
• Phonographs/Record players.
• Computer virus.
• Polio.
• Jimmy Carter.
• Asian People.
• Communism/Russia/China.
• Death. 
• Spiders.

Because the study covered more than three decades, and was forgotten as time passed, the results are antiquated and quite useless to the research at hand. 

Jamie Michelle