We know society exhibits moral outrage over serial killings, as well it should.
But why the widespread apathy over the death throes of the serial comma?
Let’s Stop Serial-Comma Killing Now! (Laughorist, via Wolcott)
‘Scuse me while I fire up my current editing project and insert a few hundred more serial commas.
John Lennon, “Instant Karma (We All Shine On)”
(The image is from Uncrate—where you can obtain the T-shirt.)
I will NEVER let the serial comma die. Well, until I die, anyway. But I’m pretty sure I’m one of the last three people who uses it all the time, and the isolation is so bad that I have to open Strunk & White periodically just for moral support. I actually start waving the book around and ranting to random passersby: “Look! It’s right there! It’s the SECOND ELEMENTARY RULE OF USAGE IN THE WHOLE FUCKING BOOK!! Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you! HEY!”
For me, it’s gotten so bad that I mentally insert the missing commas in books. My normally speedy reading pace has dropped considerably, because I have to read so many sentences twice and argue with them.