This post was submitted by matt

I blog owing to an opinion that I find it most fulfilling. To know that so many folks cotton to my thoughts is uplifting. But I can’t always talk about unhumorous and significant topics. Occasionally, it’s good to kick back a bit and unwind.

Words link us and bind us. And words bring about laughing and thinking in all of us.

In particular, I look back upon a discussion among this blog’s staff. That day saw us wrangling about Oxford Commas. An Oxford Comma sits prior to conjunctions in lists of things. As an illustration, I might say, “For lunch you’ll snack upon hot dogs, chips, and soda.” In that list, you find an Oxford Comma following ‘chips.’

Anyway, this fiasco was brought on by our own Zack, who sought to curtail our staff’s display of a suffusion of surplus commas. His command bid us to abandon forthwith our application of Oxford Commas in blog posts. I am, as far as I know, guilty in sparking a contributor mutiny. For in this onslaught of a constantly rising flood of casual grammar, Oxford Commas stand apart, a last guardian against ambiguity and lax syntax.

And so, “solidarity” I said. “Solidarity with Oxford’s Commas; stalwart guardians of fit punctuation!” And many of my blogging compatriots stood too. What was most amazing was that our communication was popular and drawn out. Its span took  us past sixty intimations. That day was full of laughing and confirms that writing is fun and invigorating.

As I look at writing in this light, it’s not surprising that I find fascinating lipograms. A difficult approach to composition, in a lipogram, an author constrains his writing by not using a symbol or group of symbols.

Not too long ago, I was lucky to alight upon a curious work known as Gadsby: Champion of Youth. It is unhappy that this book is out of print as it is a most famous lipogram. Although this publication is around fifty thousand words, you won’t find that glyph usually in fifth position in standard lists of Latin.

Notwithstanding this handicap, Gadsby is grammatically faithful and without flaw. Author Wright’s contraption follows a logical plot, narrating a town’s climb out of sloth through its youth. Town kids start following protagonist Gadsby, who having just put down roots in Branton Hills, forms an “Organization of Youth.” His toil brings spirit back to Branton Hills, soon a bustling city.

Wright’s task is inspiring as that symbol his book is known for omitting is most common in our Anglo-Saxon. It is also most common in lingo in Paris, Munich, Madrid, and Stockholm. In fact, this glyph which I am omitting has a high oscillation. In today’s Anglo-Saxon, this symbol crops up about six occasions out of fifty.

This column was difficult. But it was also fun. And that’s why I’m big on writing.

Postscript
Following finalization of this column, I saw on my monitor an apt jotting on popular blog, Stuff Caucasian Folk Fancy. Stuff Caucasian Folk Fancy’s wordsmiths posit that Caucasian Folk fancy grammar codifications. Unsurprisingly, this column whips up a shout out to Oxford Commas. It looks as if Caucasian Folk would just as soon lock horns about Oxford Commas as fit applications of “it’s.” Caucasian Folk hold that this grammarian brouhaha is “forward thinking” and highbrow.

I find that this post from Stuff Caucasian Folk Fancy is particularly congruous as I too am a Caucasian guy. I pray that I am not supporting unfair group normalizations with this column, but I worry that I am doing so. I will go out on a limb, though, and call to mind that saying, ‘if your boot fits, put it on.’

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