There's great danger for the loneliest ranger of all.

Thursday, April 22, 2004

OK, like, so I bought Eats, Shoots & Leaves last night. Now I'm reveling in its and it's as contraction and possessive (but never in the latter instance), explanations all rendered in the loveliest, fiestiest, most piquant English, and I've never been happier. I've been haunted most of my life by the "Oxford comma" (adding a comma before the "and" in a sequential list). All through school I was taught to use it, then in the early 1990s, when I got into newspapers, I had to unlearn it, only to be required to add it back almost a decade later when I changed jobs.

The flexibility of the language is fun. Admissions like this will keep me from kissing a girl this year.




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