2B
Wednesday, February 3, 2016 // The Statement
IOWA CAUCUS
ON THE
RECORD
“Tonight is a victory for the grassroots. Tonight is a
victory for courageous conservatives all across Iowa and
our great nation.”
— U.S Sen. TED CRUZ (R-Tex.) after winning the Iowa Caucus on
Tuesday with 27.6 percent of the vote.
***
“I am a progressive who gets things done for people. We
have to be united when it is all said and done against a
Republican vision and candidates who would drive us
apart and divide us.”
—HILLARY CLINTON, former Secretary of State, after narrowly
defeating U.S Sen. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT) in the Iowa Caucus.
***
“We’re just so happy with the way everything’s worked
out.”
—DONALD TRUMP after placing second in the Iowa Caucus.
Copy That: The Oxford Comma
I
’ve always been a bit of a know-it-all. I can’t resist the compulsion to correct, which
is annoying to both me and the people around me. However, this habit combined
with my love of the written word is valued at the copy desk. Since joining the desk
and spending time with many like-minded individuals with whom I can discuss criti-
cal issues like the tenses of lay and lie (if you don’t know, look it up; it’s way more con-
fusing than calculus and I’m an English major), I’ve developed some strong opinions
on topics about which most people couldn’t care less. Many grammar rules are black
and white (like your versus you’re — truly, there’s no way to get around the fact that
they are two different words with two different meanings), but other rules are more
flexible, and therefore up for debate among nerds like me.
One of the most hotly debated grammar rules both at the copy desk of The Michi-
gan Daily and in the grammar-geek world at large is that of the Oxford comma. The
Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) is the optional comma that is placed
before the word “and” at the end of a list. It may seem silly to feel so passionately about
something as tiny as a comma, but I care. OK, yes, it’s my job to care, but conversely
I do this job because I care. I’d argue that punctuation and grammar rules like the
Oxford comma are important and deserving of thought because they create very real
changes in meaning that people generally should care about if they want to communi-
cate clearly. For example, a much-used illustration of the importance of this seeming-
ly insignificant piece of punctuation is a sentence published in The Times that read,
“Highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-
old demigod and a dildo collector.” Now we’re all unsure if Nelson Mandela lived to be
an 800-year-old demigod or collected dildos. Sorry, Nelson Mandela — if only every-
one was as concerned about punctuation as the copy desk.
The Michigan Daily follows AP style guidelines, which (unfortunately for some
opinionated writers and editors) does not allow for the Oxford comma. In order to
avoid confusion, the copy desk steps in to save someone closer to home from the same
fate as The Times and Nelson Mandela.
Even outside of publishing, this rule could affect your communications. Let’s say
you send a text message to your friend that says, “Can you please invite the broomball
players, Steve and George to our party?” Now, if your friend reads that based on the
punctuation, you’re stuck with only two people invited to your party. But you wanted
all of the broomball players! And you bought party favors accordingly! What a trag-
edy!
To this day the debate rages on about the Oxford comma, but the fact of the matter
is that both ways of using it are common, and neither is without its flaws. However, if
you care like I do, you’d probably pick a side. Even though you won’t catch an Oxford
comma in the Daily because I grudgingly remove them almost every day, I am defi-
nitely Team Oxford Comma.
B Y E M I LY C A M P B E L L
“I find it odd that people don’t seem to value kindness
as much anymore. It seems like, as college students,
so much stress is placed on being successful and
driven and intelligent that we can forget to be kind.
It’s such a simple thing to smile at someone or tell a
friend you appreciate them, but I feel like it can get
lost in the craziness of college life.”
– Art & Design junior ELISE HAADSMA
EMILIE FARRUGIA/DAILY
THOUGHT BUBBLE
KINDNESS
ILLUSTRATIONS BY EMILIE FARRUGIA