Oxford Comma?

[RoJoHen]

I usually underline when I need to further emphasize something that is already in italics.

 

[scotpens]

I usually underline when I need to further emphasize something that is already in italics.

Overkill.

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

I usually underline when I need to further emphasize something that is already in italics.

And then bold it!

 

[trampledamage]

This is important

Looks good to me

 

[RoJoHen]

I usually underline when I need to further emphasize something that is already in italics.

And then bold it!

IN ALL CAPS!!!

 

[trampledamage]

I think three exclamation marks is probably over-doing it though...

 

[RoJoHen]

You need to know how important it is!

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I usually underline because it's what I was taught. Also, fwiw, the same rule applies for court cases, e.g. either Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 37 U.S. 483 (1954) or Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 37 U.S. 483 (1954). Once again, I think underline looks better, but I'm sure it was originally just supposed to be italics.

In newspaper and book publishing, underlining was used in typewritten copy to indicate text to be set in italics. Modern word processing makes the need for underlining obsolete. It looks ugly and amateurish.

YMMV.

Yeah, I know the reasons, but I'm sticking with it. It's become a convention enough of its own that people who read it are fine with it.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Underlines to me will always indicate hyper-textual links. I'm a child of Web 1.0.

 

[Trilliam]

I knew peanut butter is pretty ubiquitous in the English-speaking world. I didn't know it hadn't found its way to other western cultures. The jelly and peanut butter sandwich must be primarily a US-thing as I've never known anyone in the UK consume such a food item, probably because jelly means something different to us, and so the combination sounds weird.

Apparently, the Oxford comma can also be referred to as a Harvard comma.

Peanut butter and raspberry jam on white bread is the food of the gods. A close second is peanut butter, honey & mashed banana on a really fresch crusty bread roll. Craved these all the way through my first pregnancy.

 

[bigdaddy]

In high school I was told I used commas correctly, then in college I was too I used them too often after being told I didn't use them enough.

So fuck the language cunts that don't have lives, I do what I want!

Good day sir!

oxford comma? wtf is this shit?

peter, paul and mary went to America and beat the crap outta the stupid people who can't write English properly.

that was ten years ago and they're only a quarter of the way through the list.

So comas have to be used correctly, but "wtf", "outta" and no capital letters is fine? When is the show where you start to beat yourself up start? Will there be popcorn?

 

[Sector 7]

Ants on a Log is the best way to eat peanut butter. My kids loved it.

Recipe: spread peanut butter on a celery stick, then place a few raisins (single file, of course) on top. Little Miss Sector 7, however, always preferred Ranch dressing. Then again, she would dip anything in Ranch dressing... fried chicken, steak, sandwiches, ANYTHING!

 

[Trilliam]

Ants on a Log is the best way to eat peanut butter. My kids loved it.

Recipe: spread peanut butter on a celery stick, then place a few raisins (single file, of course) on top. Little Miss Sector 7, however, always preferred Ranch dressing Then again, she would dip anything in Ranch dressing...fried chicken, steak, sandwiches, ANYTHING!

Insert tomato sauce for my lot

 

[Vulcan Princess]

Also, fwiw, the same rule applies for court cases, e.g. either Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 37 U.S. 483 (1954) or Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 37 U.S. 483 (1954). Once again, I think underline looks better, but I'm sure it was originally just supposed to be italics.

Unless you're doing law review footnotes, then it's just Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 37 U.S. 483 (1954). Drives me crazy because it looks stupid. If I wrote the Bluebook, cases would be italicized in the footnotes, too.

 

[Daneel]

Oh yes, I use the Oxford comma. Always have. I guess that's what I was taught to do, although I don't really recall. To do otherwise would just seem unnatural to me now.

I must admit, though, I never knew it had a specific name.

 

[KimMH]

More than one professor advised me that my grasp of the concept of commas is poor. My student newspaper editor forbid me from using them, so I am never confident if I am using them correctly. I insert them where I think I would pause in speaking.

 

[cultcross]

I was taught in school never to use a comma before 'and'. I stoically refused to listen, and still do so to this day. The reason given at the time was that 'and' was a natural pause, something that I simply don't hear or agree with. So, wherever a pause in speech precedes 'and', it gets a comma just like any other word.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I insert them where I think I would pause in speaking.

If, I, did, that, my, writing, would, look, like, this.

 

[Mutai Sho-Rin]

As a professional technical writer for over 40 years, I have never used it. I was taught from grade school not to put a comma before "and" at the end of a list and all the way through the University, the instruction remained consistent. It doesn't bug me to see it though, and I never knew it had a name.

 

[RoJoHen]

I was taught in school never to use a comma before 'and'. I stoically refused to listen, and still do so to this day. The reason given at the time was that 'and' was a natural pause, something that I simply don't hear or agree with. So, wherever a pause in speech precedes 'and', it gets a comma just like any other word.

"And" in and of itself doesn't imply a pause. It depends how it's being used. For example, your sentence...

I stoically refused to listen, and still do so to this day.

...uses the comma inappropriately. It has nothing to do with pauses. It has to do with the fact that "still do so to this day" is not an independent clause and cannot stand on its own.

If you had said, "and I still do so to this day," the comma would be fine because "I still do so to this day" is an independent clause.