Well, I’ve fought it as long as I could, but it looks like I’m going to end up on the losing end of this one.
My good buddy Bobby Earl and I have been lobbying hard to end the incorrect use of “impact” as a verb for years, yet people keep throwing it out there everywhere you turn.
Instead of “having an impact” on something, people tend to abbreviate by saying “impacting.” According to the American Heritage Book of Usage, 84% of the Usage Panel disapproves of using the word in this way. But the train has already left the station, so I doubt we’re going to be able to catch this one.
I’d better shift my focus back to fighting for the always-correct inclusion of a comma before the last item/word/phrase when items/words/phrases are listed in series. Lots of people like to skip that last comma before the word “and,” regarding it superfluous and unnecessary, but such an omission is not always correct, and often serves to confuse the reader.
This is a battle it appears I am winning, as evidenced by the countless links to handbooks and other online writing resources advocating the consistent use of a "Serial Comma" before the word “and.” I would include some of those links here, but you people should really be able to trust me by now. How long have we been dating?
But if you insist.
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4 comments:
Thank you...I thought I was the only one fighting this battle (in all seriousness, it's a pet peeve of mine in writing, too).
This trend to omit the final "serial comma" we owe to the fourth estate (always trying to save space). The AP Style Book: "Use commas to separate elements in a series, BUT DO NOT PUT A COMMA BEFORE THE CONJUNCTION IN A SIMPLE SERIES."
As usual, the media is fucking things up. No doubt journalists will be the ruin of us all...
I am not terribly committed in this debate, but I am annoyed by the common error of an author being insconsistent with his or her usage within the space of a document. If you insist on wading into one of these usage skirmishes, for the love of Pete (Fonda), show some conviction.
When confronted with difficult decicions such as whether to include the final serial comma, I often ask myself: "What would Mike Martz do?" When this fails to produce anything constructive, I often ask myself: "What would Bill O'Reilly do?" Then I go to sleep for several days...
I love you guys. Really.
Now I am puzzled by a much deeper question: What WOULD Mike Martz do?
Dammit, Jay. WHY do you bring up such important questions and then abandon then without so much as a second thought? I need a team of monkeys working on this vexing inquiry.
I feel I am more impacted by Mike Martz than perhaps any other single American figure.
(I think the incorrect use of "impacted" in that sentence gives it a Brokeback meaning I did not intend)
And don't get me started on the double space after the period thing. People, by and large, are lazy - we simply don't want to invest any effort in learning new things when the old things work just fine. So why re-train ourselves to only hit the space bar once after a period when hitting it twice comes naturally and works just as well? There's really no upside to it.
As a writer, I am often tasked with "cleaning up" large documents for clients. One of the standard fixes I perform is the global replace of ".__" with "._" I recommend trying this next time you get your hands on a group document, but don't use underscores like I just did - actually hit the space bar. (I figure you probably knew that, but wanted to make sure my bases were covered) This is a great way to fix all of those unsightly gutters at once - and even better is that it creates a TON of work for the person hell bent on getting those spaces back into the document. And since most people are allergic to work, 9 times out of 10 you will win the battle.
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