Commas are not in Command

     

       I think we live in a world where capitals and extra-letters are more noticed than commas. Many people text more in a normal day than what they actually speak. Even more people prefer to express themselves and face tough situations through social networks such as Whatsapp, Twitter, and Facebook. Whether it’s anger, sadness, happiness or any other emotion, we tend to write (or in this case text) in a certain way. When we get the alert on their phones that someone just texted us, we immediately scan the screen. If the text is written all in capital letters, then something must be wrong. If the person added two extra letters to the end of a word, then nothing is wrong but if they added more than two, they’re intense, very angry, or maybe drunk. You make all kinds of assumptions when it comes to these kinds of factors that for you, can change the entire meaning of a text. But do we even notice commas? When are we using these cute little things?

     The article “Will We Use Commas in theFuture” by Matthew J.X Malady argues whether or not commas are needed. As to what I said before about commas in texts, he says that “commas don’t thrive in those environs” and that “it’s being purged.” Also, Malady says that commas are “in some ways like ketchup and mustard.” I agree that we’d all survive without commas. Malady points out different examples taken from popular networks such as Twitter where people are sharing their thoughts on something that happened without using commas and it still makes perfect sense. The fact that the examples are from an editor at BuzzFeed, a writer and biographer, and a New Yorker writer, makes Malady’s point more credible and clear. Older people might read the examples and would probably argue that the sentences need some commas, but once you learn about the kind of people who are behind their little keyboards tweeting, you feel good because if these professionals don’t use commas, you might as well just copy them.

    

     Even though I agree that commas are less meaningful and important in texts than capitals, extra-letters, or even emojis, I have to agree that commas serve a purpose when it comes to appearing in academic or formal texts. These types of writing are different than texting because you are never going to write an essay as you would normally speak or text. Therefore, adding commas sometimes can be essential to make the reader have a more clear idea of what is it youre trying to say.

     

    As I try to finish this entry my phone starts vibrating. I get notifications from Whatsapp and Twitter. For the first time, I try to pay close attention on the way my friends are writing instead of the content of the message. Even though we are in a conversation, no one is texting with neither commas nor periods. Maybe we just use question marks or periods because “there is no similar confusion about when to place them” or maybe they just seem to be indifferent to the conversation. To the people who believe “let’s eat grandma” has to be written as “let’s eat, grandma” I respectfully say they have to grow up. The comma is indifferent to what the sentence is really saying. We are in 2014 now. If you think someone wants to eat a grandma you have serious problems man. 

"It Widens Out, I Promise"

     

        I find myself in a war with my brain while reading the debate from the New York Times about grammar rules. I had been warned by my friends that this was the hardest piece we had been assigned to analyze so far this year but I never thought it would be THAT hard. I mean, after Frederick Douglass or the multiple choice exams “hard” couldn’t be so bad. I was wrong and now I sit here, writing a blog post that will probably have as much sense as the debate did for me. Anyway, I’ll try my best.

     So after going over the debate for the third time, this is what I understand. Two guys, Robert Lane Greene and Bryan A. Garner, are formally arguing about different opinions people have about the way language should be used. Both experts are well, experts in their own topic and thanks to their great use of rhetoric, you feel like a complete idiot when reading their points. The debate starts with Lane, the descriptivist, telling Garner that he “preaches stodgy nonrules that most people don’t obey,” and that people like him “don’t understand that language must grow and change.” Then, Garner comes back to Lane with statements such as “the linguists have switched their position- without, of course, acknowledging that this is what they’ve done.” Now I feel like a baby that can easily be persuaded by simple things such as a toy that has a louder sound than another. Finally after reading another round of the Language Wars I decide to go with Robert Lane’s descriptivist side. It seems logical to explain what both terms mean and why I finally chose to go with one.

     Descriptivists, as Lane puts it, are those who “try to describe language as it is used.” Prescriptivists, on the other hand, “focus on how language should be used.” When you mix both, you get whats called a descriptive prescriber. Descriptive prescribers “tell people which usages they should prefer, but when a battle has been lost over several decades, they call it lost and suggest people they move on.” I relate more with being a descriptivist because as a teenager, I find many ways (or should I say many apps?) of how language is being used. I don’t believe there’s a certain way language has to be used. Each day, as language changes we “must acknowledge a new rule” as Lane states, “we must be descriptivists in other words.” Also I choose to be on the descriptivist side because like Lane, my blood boils when I see that prescriptivists call some people “ignorant” or even “illiterate”.

     To reach a conclusion for my war, I decided to gather some phrases from the debate that caught my attention. The entire debate caught my attention really but that’s for you to check out on your own.

“To a linguist or psychologist, language is like the song of the humpback whale.… Isn’t the song of the humpback whale whatever the humpback whale decides to sing?” –“The Language Instinct” 1994

“The real point is this: We could go a long way toward reconciling the language wars if linguists and writers like you would stop demonizing all prescriptivists and start acknowledging that the reputable ones have always tried to base their guidance on sound descriptions.”

“For those readers who have stuck with me, here is the point: the rule has no root in great English usage.  But it’s simply not what great writers consistently do, not now or ever.”

Vocabulary:

maladroit- (adj.) inefficient or inept; clumsy