{"id":13624,"date":"2013-02-06T15:27:14","date_gmt":"2013-02-06T20:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=13624"},"modified":"2013-02-06T15:27:14","modified_gmt":"2013-02-06T20:27:14","slug":"serial-commas-moriarty-and-another-convert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2013\/02\/06\/serial-commas-moriarty-and-another-convert\/","title":{"rendered":"Serial commas, Moriarty, and another convert"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Arika Okrent rounds up \u201cThe Best Shots Fired in the Oxford Comma Wars<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a nice reminder that the Oxford insistence on always<\/em> including a serial comma can lead to absurdities just as easily as never<\/em> including it can.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Comma police, arrest this man \u2026<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This creates a problem for fundamentalist partisans in the Oxford Comma Wars, but isn\u2019t really a big deal for everyone else. Style books lean toward sweeping rules \u2014 they like to say \u201calways\u201d or \u201cnever.\u201d But always will always get you in trouble eventually, and never will never keep you perfectly safe from ambiguity.<\/p>\n

So use the Oxford comma in a sentence like \u201cShe took a photograph of her parents, the president, and the vice president,\u201d because without it the sentence is ambiguous and potentially misleading. Enjoy a chuckle over \u201cthe strippers, JFK and Stalin<\/a>,\u201d but do so as a reminder of why a serial comma is needed in sentences like that one<\/em>, not in all sentences, everywhere, because rule.<\/p>\n

If you shove an Oxford comma into a simple list that doesn\u2019t need one \u2014 \u201cred, white, and blue\u201d \u2014 the only thing you\u2019re communicating to readers is that you have a rule and you\u2019re going to follow it no matter what it does to the rhythm of a sentence.<\/p>\n

Well, that, and that you should never be allowed to sing \u201cStars and Stripes Forever\u201d or \u201cScarborough Fair.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

Dave Lartigue describes what has started to bug him about Sherlock<\/em> and Elementary<\/em>, and in so doing makes me realize that something bugs me about Sherlock<\/em> and Elementary<\/em> too. \u201cI\u2019d Prefer Less Moriarty<\/a>,\u201d he writes:<\/p>\n

In the stories we don\u2019t marvel at [Sherlock Holmes] stalking Jack the Ripper or D.B. Cooper or Dr. Moriarty, we look at him taking interest in an oddball case involving a dude \u201chired\u201d to copy pages from a dictionary, or about a guy who gets orange seeds in the mail. These are the cases that interest Holmes, and then us as he uncovers the plots behind them.<\/p>\n

Moriarty was no part of this until he was clumsily introduced in a story specifically to kill off Holmes. Suddenly this diabolus ex machina was wheeled in, awkwardly retconned as the man behind all the crime, and then dispatched. Never mentioned before, barely mentioned afterwards. Now he\u2019s the third most important character in the Holmesiverse, and I don\u2019t know how he got there.<\/p>\n

The thing that bothers me about Moriarty, and especially when it came to Sherlock<\/em> and now Elementary<\/em> is that not only does he come in as the big bad, he also brings with him the old personal vendetta. He\u2019s not The Napoleon of Crime, he\u2019s The Guy Who Really Effin Hates Sherlock Holmes, and he doesn\u2019t just do crimes, he has it in for Holmes specifically. Once he walks on stage, Holmes stops solving crimes and starts a deadly game of cat and mouse where this time it\u2019s personal. What we tuned in to see is cast aside: we know who the bad guys is (Moriarty) and what the endgame is (defeat Holmes).<\/p>\n

It also bugs me at this point because it turns the plot into exactly the kind of plot I hate, the one where the good guy and the bad guy just have a giant pissing contest around the city and usually a bunch of faceless innocent nobodies get caught in-between. I hate<\/em> this story. I don\u2019t like it when the hero is in a situation where, honestly, we\u2019d be better off without him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If I had to give a name to what he describes in that last paragraph, I think I\u2019d call it The Joker Problem.<\/p>\n

* * * * * * * * *<\/p>\n

We have another convert. Sarah Bessey confesses<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I heard about it forever but I don\u2019t like sci-fi or alien stuff. But I grabbed the first season (starting with the ninth doctor) and decided to give it a go. After the first episode, I thought it was a horrible show with cheap special effects. \u2026 All of a sudden, right around episode 9, I lost my mind and became completely addicted. I\u2019ve blasted through Series 1 and I\u2019m halfway through Series 2. I\u2019m a converted New Whovian, drinking from a firehose.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One of us, gabba gabba. \u2026<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Use a serial comma when it clarifies the meaning of the sentence. And don’t use one when it messes up the meaning of the sentence. Or when singing “Scarborough Fair.” Plus, what’s wrong with Moriarty, and Sarah goes to the Doctor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSerial commas, Moriarty, and another convert<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Use a serial comma when it clarifies the meaning of the sentence. And don't use one when it messes up the meaning of the sentence. Or when singing "Scarborough Fair." 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Serial commas, Moriarty, and another convert","description":"Use a serial comma when it clarifies the meaning of the sentence. And don't use one when it messes up the meaning of the sentence. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. 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