Confessions of a grammar snob

I'll admit it: I'm somewhat of a grammar snob.I haven't always been as adamant about it as I am today, and 20 years in newspaper newsrooms probably had some affect on me in that regard. You haven't met so many people concerned about the placement of a comma or disdainful of adverbs until you've worked at a newspaper.We used the AP Stylebook, the bible of newsrooms throughout the United States. This ensured that there were certain things, no matter where you worked, were the same. Cities that didn't need a country referenced when you cited them (Tokyo, London and New York, for example). Whether you were supposed to capitalize the word "internet" (until last year, the answer was yes).One of the most controversial rulings in the Stylebook, however, was the use of commas. AP Style dated back to times when every single character was of vital importance to whether or not your article would fit the space allotted (too many commas could help push a story to the point where two or three or even five lines might have to be cut, depending on where they fell). It made perfect sense to not use the so-called serial comma (sometimes called the Oxford comma)..If it were vital to understand the sentence, then you should use it. If the meaning wouldn't be affected, then you weren't supposed to use it.A sharp-thinking writer could always find ways to reword the sentence to avoid the comma, though. It made you really think about what you were writing, how you were writing it, and how people would read it. Yes, I used a serial comma in my last sentence. With three long clauses, it does make more sense to use a comma, as a visual cue. That's an example of where the serial comma makes perfect sense.The example often given as to why the serial comma is so necessary is funny and people seem to love to share it.Thing is, all you have to do is rearrange what you're writing and no one would ever think you're calling JFK and Stalin strippers. "We invited JFK, Stalin and the strippers." One might note that it would be odd to mention the strippers first anyway, when you're talking about inviting two deceased world leaders. That's kind of the headline, no?I am less opposed to the serial comma today than I used to be, as I see more cases where it makes sense.That was the most useful rule I learned about grammar and writing, thanks to my freshman year writing lab instructor, Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn.Learn the rules. Then you can break them.Eric gave us a huge document on the first day of class, filled with all his writing rules - the difference between over and more than; when you use which and when you use that; the horror that is the passive voice. I have the document somewhere in a box in the basement, I believe. I could never get rid of it.When we turned in our papers each week, we were expected to follow every single one of these rules. There was an exception - if you were violating one of the rules, and wrote an "i.v." next to it, for "intentional violation," you didn't get a red mark. Even if Eric didn't agree with your decision to violate the rule, it was more important that we knew we were breaking the rule and had actually thought about it.So, use the serial comma. Or don't. Just don't get all up in my grill when I don't. Or do.Cat photo credit: Ken Whytock via Foter.com / CC BY-NCIf anyone knows who originally created the Oxford Comma drawing above, I would love to know - an extensive internet search did not turn up the artist, and it's been used gazillions of times. I would like to give credit where it is due.