<p>Eats, Shoots and Leaves...Of course, from the joke!</p>
<p>Lapsing into a Comma sounds like fun--cute title! The hubby and I disagree on comma use--he is liberal and I am conservative (when it comes to commas). I don't want to say that we violently disagree, but we can't edit each other's work...</p>
<p>"I am an alien and I have found my mothership!"</p>
<p>j-n-s-q: Thank God we're aboard.</p>
<p>We are found!</p>
<p>Did that book ever get published that some of us got solicited to provide interviews for, a year or so ago???</p>
<p>^^^^"Ay, Ay, Commander!" <salutes> (to je<em>ne</em>sais<em>quoi</em>)</salutes></p>
<p>ellemenope, my H & I disagree on semicolon usage! I use them when necessary. H, on the other hand, considers them completely unnecessary. I suppose if that's all we disagree on after 25 years of marriage, life is good. :)</p>
<p>Its easy to break CC habit. All you got to do is to offend a few people (you know who they are). </p>
<p>I think that am will done soon. S is got another month left on this college internship. When he's done, I will be be out of cheese.</p>
<p>My son, who is a great punctuator, said he deliberately "threw down a semi-colon" in his SAT essay so the readers would know he could punctuate properly. I am hopeless.</p>
<p>cangel</p>
<p>That book was published. If you were a better addict you'd have read about it here--did you go on vacation or something?</p>
<p>jnsq</p>
<p>Sorry, dear, you're probably with us for life.</p>
<p>Yep, I think you're probably right. My youngest is only in 1st grade so I have a long, long journey ahead of me. I once calculated that I'll have a child at home for 29 years, and that assumes none of my children will return to the nest after college -- a big, and probably unrealistic, assumption!</p>
<p>By the way, "Comma Queen" is one of my nicknames. I'm not sure if it's a term of endearment or a commentary on my fondness for the squiggle. I still don't know if one ALWAYS puts the punctuation inside the quotes at the end of a sentence, or if the reason for the quotes determines where the punctuation goes. My grammar books are not clear on this. Please weigh in if you have an opinion!</p>
<p>One week I remember going to my elder daughter's senior year concert and my younger daughter's kindergarten concert! It does fly. I am now beginning with my younger daughter's college application process. Time does fly. Things do change!</p>
<p>I am pretty sure the comma always goes before the quotation mark (all punctuation marks go inside the qm, actually). I'm not an expert, but I am pretty darn good at avoiding green lines on grammar check!</p>
<p>Comma rules can change over time. In my long ago day, when you made a list of terms, you did not put a comma between the last item on the list and "and."</p>
<p>Now it seems you do.</p>
<p>Yes, ellemenope -- I've been wondering that for years. When did the comma rule change? I'm guessing sometime between when I was in 6th grade and my kids were.</p>
<p>Actually, I learned (many years ago) that you could do it either way. I have always preferred to put the comma before the "and." There are instances in which the intent can be confused without the comma; I just came across one the other day (wish I could remember what it was!).</p>
<p>je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi, in the States, the comma always goes inside the quotation marks. In the UK, it goes outside.</p>
<p>And everybody else, as for those serial commas (in a list): Yes, it's pretty much a matter of preference. Some newspapers' style books follow one path and some another; the same's true of in-house style guides at various publishing houses. The important thing is to be consistent w/in your own document/publication/etc. </p>
<p>But REALLY what I wanted to say is, wow, je<em>ne</em>sais_quoi, I never picked up on the fact that you, too, are still in the land of (as Anna Quindlan put it) the days of construction paper and gilded rigatoni. I have one in Kindergarten. I guess you and I will be here long after even the most addicted among us have moved on. :) Or, the rest of the most addicted. . . .</p>
<p>newspapers and other (nearly extinct) journalistic enterprises don't use the serial comma... for the simple reason, I believe, to save space... back from the days of typesetting and valuable column inches. Chicago and other style guides still recommend using it. I'm a big believer, as there are many situations where its use prevents confusion.</p>
<p>I was taught that the only punctuation mark to go outside of a quotation mark was the semi-colon. I have no idea why.</p>
<p>The hardest thing for me to remember when typing these days is that there is only a single space after a period. When I began to learn to type in 8th grade, we were ordered to double space after a period and I still do. Now, however, I use 'global replace' at the end of a piece to change all my doubles to singles. Technology strikes again!</p>
<p>Here's my dilemma: </p>
<p>1) The kid was known as a "boy wonder". OR</p>
<p>2) The kid was knows as a "boy wonder."</p>
<p>The kid was known as a "boy wonder." That one is correct!</p>
<p>Is it your first grader you're talking about? ;)</p>
<p>Oh, I've been doing it wrong all these years.</p>
<p>back to the original post...see, this is what happens when you take a few days off CC...you are late to the conversation! we came home from spring break visits to seveal colleges with jr D and i needed a break from all things college related. (okay, i didn't go completely cold turkey, just took a few hits on a couple of forums, but missed this post.)</p>
<p>anyway, it was fun to read the article and to see HisGraceFillsMe and bethievt quoted, both of whom have given me great advice. i'm glad i found CC this year - i know i will need all of you next year as D selects, applies, and waits :)</p>