Well, although I think it’s a tempest in a teapot, it’s one well worth navigating. I agree our proud English language (such as it is spoken in America) is slowly evaporating. Dumbed down. Simplified. One wonders who still loves convoluted sentences?

Actually, they’re addressing a real problem: the inclusion of apostrophes in street names. Their reasoning is that it can confuse computer systems that look up street addresses. And, the article points out, no apostrophes are used by the United States Board of Geographic Names, with only five exceptions (Martha’s Vineyard is cited as an example).

Uh, so how have all these computer systems been doing it thus far? If you’ve ever looked something up on Google Maps, you’ll find that the software is pretty amazing at interpreting what’s typed in.

Oh, and apostrophes are expensive! “The cost would be astronomical,” the article quotes a council member as saying.

But, someone is riding to the rescue. The Apostrophe Protection Society in Lincolnshire has spoken, claiming it undermines proper education. I tried to find a URL for the society (surely the apostrophe deserves its own website!) but the URL seems dead.

Read the article for yourself and leave a comment on the Times website and one here too.

Examples:

For years I always thought of the first example as correct, and perhaps you have too. It’s economical, after all, and since every comma inserts a bit of a break in the way a sentence is read (even when you’re just reading silently to yourself), the second sentence takes longer.

But the trend is in the direction of the comma prior to the conjunction. The Chicago Manual of Style, an influential guidebook, devotes more than ten pages to commas. But, even in my 1982 edition, Rule 5.50 says, “When a conjunction joins the last two elements in a series, a comma is used before the conjunction.” The Manual gives an example: “We have a choice of copper, silver, or gold.”

The Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage (1989) is not so clear. It states, “There is also a good deal of comment on the use or nonuse of a comma before the coordinating conjunction in a series of three or more. In spite of all the discussion, practice boils down to the writer’s personal preference, or sometimes a house or organizational style. Additional comment is not needed.”

In other words, do what you want.

And I did for years. But what made me think about it again was Book 7 of the Harry Potter series. The books uses the comma prior to the conjunction in every case. This made me think about the issue, but was not quite compelling. But what settled it for me was, of all things, the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, which I stumbled across on Amazon and purchased. Page 173 is quite explicit: “When a conjunction joins the last two elements in a series, use a comma before the conjunction.”

But what I find compelling is the reason the Microsoft Manual urges such rigidity. Much technical literature is machine-translated and not proofread prior to release. Microsoft releases a flood of technical information every year in many languages. Employing language specialists is much too costly (plus they’re hard to find). So the Oxford comma is placed in text for a simple reason: clarity. And that provided an answer for the Harry Potter books, which are translated into dozens of languages. I suspect the Harry Potter translation is first done by a computer, then reviewed by a language specialist.

That got me to thinking. I like clean, clear writing. I review every sentence to ensure it has only the intended meaning. And that pesky Oxford comma helps provide clarity.

That’s good enough for me. I suggest you do likewise.

So why do I insert all those parenthetical comments into the books in the Broom series? I think the simplest explanation is that the writing style is completely informal. One fan wrote that she could imagine herself in my living room, sitting in front of the fire, listening to me tell the story in my own words. I must be succeeding, because that’s exactly what I aimed for.

I’m not alone in using parentheses. In fact, I’m in good company. No less a publication than the Economist uses them regularly. Here’s a quick example: “[In] tabloid (this meaning coined in 1902) journalese (1882)…” In the first case the parenthetical comment explains something, and in the second it adds detail. But why not just write without them?

The answer lies in emphasis. Let’s take a simple example from Broom 3 (which I hope to release in 2009). Consider the following three lines:

I set a glass of orange juice in front of him.
I set a small glass of orange juice in front of him.
I set a (small) glass of orange juice in front of him.

If you believe the grammar books about parenthetical phrases, the sentence should mean the same thing if the phrase is eliminated. Maybe not so! The first sentence is rather boring–in this case Hardy, a key character, had asked for some at our breakfast table. The second doesn’t tell much either–perhaps Hardy had asked for a small glass. But take a glance at the third. He’d asked for orange juice and I handed him a smaller glass than he might’ve been anticipating. Does this tell you something about my relationship with Hardy? Yes! The third sentence indicates he got less than he asked for, and conveys my dislike. I could’ve rephrased it: “I gave him a much smaller glass of orange juice than he requested.” But I think the parenthetical phrase is more revealing.

And, it has its benefits in other instances where it shows voice. This example comes from Broom I: “This required considerable effort, because I’m in lousy shape (overweight is a shape, right?), but I managed it.” That phrasing changes the entire voice.

So, how should you approach (or avoid) a plethora of parentheses? It depends. If the parenthetical phrase you’re crafting is really part of the sentence, then just make it so. If the phrase provides a needed short explanation, then go ahead if the explanation is not fully necessary to the narrative, but you’d like your reader to know anyway. I like to use parentheses to show my thought process, because I write the broom books in the first person.

How about you? Do what you (or your editor) wants!