The Serial Comma Is Important To Jedis

[onceupon]

Okay, one more post and then I'm probably done for a little while. Oh, this reminds me of the early days of the LJ, when people were posting five or six times a day! I use Tumblr for that sort of thing now. Anyway.

Comments

[yshaloo]

I love these :)

Ok, grammar queen. I have a question for you.

This seems to have fallen out of use, yet I could swear that it is correct. However, I'm looking at what people on FACEBOOK are doing and they are mostly illiterate luluheads, so what do they know?

If I say to you:

Happy Birthday to you, Marianne! or
Marianne, will you please come over here and help me with this?

or any other sentence where I address "you" and also use your name, then I need to use a comma. Correct? I could have SWORN that was correct. And I can't have Susie Braden rising from her grave (or retirement) to haunt me forever over this.

No one other than me seems to do this, but like I've said, I don't quite trust their mad grammar skillz. And while I will quite often throw the rules to the wind ON PURPOSE, I hate to do it from ignorance.

[marchenland]

The comma before or after the name when directly addressing someone is correct. It has nothing to do with the word "you," however. It's the rule of direct address.

"Let's go kill Voldamort, Harry!"
"Ron, go on ahead. I'm going to stay here and snog your girlfriend."

However, it's increasingly common for them to be dropped in informal usage (emails, Facebook).

[yshaloo]

thank you, I knew I hadn't lost my mind completely!

[solarflare78]

Hilarious. :-)

[etcet]

"Behold the power of this fully-armed and operational OXFORD COMMA."

[kat1031]

Eew, Oxford comma. I no likey.

[firynze]

TELL THIS TO THE PEOPLE I WORK WITH DEAR GOD WE NEED OXFORD COMMAS MY POOR POOR COMMAS.