Why is it called the Oxford comma? Why not the Cambridge comma or the London comma?

The Oxford Comma, also known as the serial comma or the Harvard comma, was traditionally used by readers, printers and editors at Oxford University Press. Not all writers and publishers use it, but it can clarify the meaning of a sentence when the items in a list are not single words. It is placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually and, or, or nor) when you have a series of three or more terms.

I love my parents, Eric Clapton and Carole King.
I love my parents, Eric Clapton, and Carole King. 

The first sentence, without the Oxford comma, could be misconstrued, and you might be fooled into thinking Eric Clapton and Carole King were my parents (if you were exceptionally gullible!). The second sentence, with the Oxford comma, makes it quite clear that they are three different sets of people. You could, of course, rewrite the sentence completely to read: I love Eric Clapton, Carole King and my parents. But if you are listing in order of preference, then the Oxford comma helps! 

If it doesn’t make the sentence ambiguous to miss it out, then it is purely a matter of preference.

What are your thoughts on using the Oxford comma? Do you? ... or don't you?

To finish off, if you have the time and inclination, here’s something for you to get your tongue around, courtesy of 9gag.com (and my friend Chris Renehan who tagged it to me on Facebook):
http://9gag.com/gag/aZNqge0?ref=fbp

Cartoon courtesy Juliet Fay, "How the Grocer's Apostrophe led to generations of confused writers.” Web Source: http://carondann.com/tag/grocers-apostrophe/

Yes, I know. Irritating isn't it! But the number of people who do this is incredible. 

Working in a junior school it is something I come across every day. But then you would expect that - it’s one of the things the children are there for: to learn how to use apostrophes with contractions or possessives.

How many times have you been to a restaurant or café and seen apostrophes wrongly used on the menu? Or in a shop, or on a leaflet … I could go on.

What I can’t understand is why people don’t have their menu/leaflet/poster proofread before it goes to print - it makes it look unprofessional if there are silly errors. It isn’t too hard to remember that apostrophes are used:

• for possessive nouns: so if a noun owns something use an apostrophe, ie, Bob’s ice cream had melted in the sun’s heat

• when you use contractions: to shorten a word by removing one letter or more and substituting an apostrophe in the same spot, ie, Bob’s going to the shop to buy another ice cream

Remember - if it’s a plural do not use an apostrophe:

• ice creams always melt in the sun
• bananas are on offer today

The other problem with apostrophes is what to do if it is a possessive name ending in “s”:

• Chris’s bike was the best on the block
• Chris’ bike was the best on the block

Which is the correct way to use the apostrophe? Actually, both are acceptable, so long as you make sure you are consistent.

For possessive plural names, stick the apostrophe after the “s”, ie, “We travel in the Browns' bus when we visit the Joneses (members of the Jones family) at the Joneses' home.” When the last name ends with a hard "z" sound, you usually don't add an "s" or the "-es" but just add the apostrophe: "the Chambers' new puppy."

The most important rule to remember then is:

If it is a plural do not use an apostrophe

Interesting question.

I was taught to leave two spaces after a full stop, but that was in the days of manual typewriters (ooops - showing my age there!).

Typewriter characters had a monospaced type, which means every character occupied an equal amount of horizontal space, giving you text that looked gappy with a lot of white space between characters and words. If you think of the difference in size between a lower case i or number 1 to a capital M or W you can see what I mean. It was harder to spot the spaces between sentences, so it was more usual to leave two (sometimes even three or four!) spaces after a full stop to make the end of sentences clearer.

When electric typewriters and computers came into being in the 1970s the characters used proportional fonts, which means the typeface contained characters of varying widths (Courier being the one major exception). These are easier to read and look more professional.

Because we now all use these modern fonts there is no need to leave two spaces after a full stop as it no longer enhances readability. This standard was adopted because editors, typographers, writers and others settled on it after years of experience.

Hard habit to break though ...

The other day I asked my daughter to soak a pair of her rather grubby socks in the basin. When I went into the bathroom to get them they weren’t there. I found them in the kitchen. In the sink.

 So, that got me thinking. Is there a difference between the meanings of a basin and a sink?

I just assumed because I had used the word ‘basin’ she would know I meant the bathroom.

When you look these two words up in the dictionary, it is actually quite a job to find the word sink as a noun. I finally found the definition online in the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/learner/sink where, right at the bottom of the page, it stated:

sinknoun
A large open container in a kitchen that has taps/faucets to supply water and that you use for washing dishes, in: Don't just leave your dirty plates in the sink! I felt chained to the kitchen sink (= I had to spend all my time doing jobs in the house). 

(I can relate to that!)

Apparently the word origin as a noun is Middle English from the verb sink.

Basin was easy to find and, as you will know, comes from the word washbasin. Below are both definitions:

basinnoun
Chiefly British. A bowl for washing, typically attached to a wall and having taps connected to a water supply; a washbasin.

washbasinnoun
(also basin) (both especially British English) (also sink North American English, British English) (also especially North American English washbowl)
A large bowl that has taps/faucets and is fixed to the wall in a bathroom, used for washing your hands and face in.

The origin is Middle English: from Old French bacin, from medieval Latin bacinus, from bacca ‘water container’, perhaps of Gaulish origin.
 

It’s interesting to note in the definition for washbasin that it says: ‘also sink North American English’. I asked my father and American stepmother and they both use 'basin' for the bathroom and 'sink' for the kitchen. Maybe that’s his English influence as he said that some Americans do call a bathroom basin a sink ...

The answer then to ‘When is a basin a sink?’ would generally seem to be ‘When it is in the kitchen’ – unless you are American!

  All definitions are taken from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/

Below is a situation that happened to me recently, and I wonder if any of you have come across anything similar?

I was contacted by a person who had written a book, originally on a manual typewriter. This had subsequently been put into a Word document using Dragon Speech Recognition Software and edited by the author. Because English wasn’t his first language, as you can imagine, this made the content interesting to say the least. He wanted his manuscript copy edited and proofread and made ready to publish.

I did a sample copy edit and proofread of a section that he sent me, which although needing a lot of alterations because of the language problems, didn’t seem an impossible task. After agreeing to do the job at a price below my usual charges, thinking it would be good experience and wanting to help someone who was trying to self-publish, he sent me the first section of 8,067 words.

Anyway, long story short, what he really needed was an editor. The work needed a complete rewrite to make it legible for an English speaking person. After having spent 30 hours rewriting those 8,067 words which stretched to 16 pages, I decided this was not actually something I was experienced enough to take on, especially when he told me that he had edited the changes I had made, added some more text to that section and wanted me to edit it again. He was also unhappy that I had not inserted any ‘academic’ words into it!?

So, back to the question. When is a copy editor not an editor?

The answer, it seems to me, is where there is a major rewrite involved.

As a copy editor I would expect to correct errors in spelling, grammar, punctuation and style; I would expect to edit for sense and make sure the meaning of the text is clear and makes sense; to check the length of sentences and paragraphs; check for consistency and improve language style.

However, I would NOT expect to be responsible for rewriting and restructuring the text in depth, ie content editing or substantive editing, which is what this required.

Especially not for the price he was prepared to pay for the work!

It’s not all about the money. Because I love my work, if I think a project will give me job satisfaction then so long as I don’t feel I am being taken advantage of I am happy to do the work. Unfortunately not the situation in this case!