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I’ve been reading in Eats, Shoots & Leaves lately, brushing up on my punctuative skills, learning a lot of history of how punctuation came to be, and laughing hysterically so much so that Julie Dog has stared at me in a concerned sort of way several times. While reading this delicious book, I have found that I follow all of the undisputable rules but that I have developed my own sort of style, especially with commas, which is not incorrect despite not being accepted by much of the literate population. I seem to lean more towards the 19th century way of adding commas, which I find more elegant, neat, and understandable than the 21st century way of using the least amount of commas as possible. As it is, it’s an author’s prerogative to use debatable commas or not.

There are, however, a few rules that simply need to be followed, and I cannot stress them more. Some are more bendable than others, but then there are exceptions, exceptions to exceptions, exceptions to the squared exception, and so on. The below are the two rules that, when people seem to strive to not follow them, send my brain into a tumultuous quiver similar to that of Jello pudding or custard:

• The Joining Comma. Two sentences simply cannot be spliced together by a mere comma (or worse– nothing at all; that’s like going to market without your outerwear on). Cringe with me: “The larder smells of duff, it’s time to clean it out.” Never should two sentences be combined in this way. Some may argue that authors who are famous can do whatever they want. I argue that should never happen except in poetry and Devil-worshiping scriptures (and I think we can agree that such scripture oughtn’t to exist, and neither should much of the poetry that exists). Sentences, if preferred to be joined, must be joined by a comma and the appropriate coordinating conjunction (and, but, yet, or, nor, so): “The larder smells of duff, so it’s time to clean it out.” Sentences that have related ideas may be joined by a semicolon: “The larder smells of duff; it’s time to clean it out.” Lastly, of course, sentences may be separated by periods: “The larder smells of duff. It’s time to clean it out.”
• Stupid Commas. There is no other description for these commas. They have no logical or even rationally irrational place, nor do they make sense to even pause for breath; they are painfully tossed into sentences in the hopes that they might land in appropriate places. Observe: “Mister McFlurry didn’t have, any chocolate chips.” “Alphus Rumblefloor, slipped on the menagerie floor and, broke his spectator’s nose, by accident.” “Delius Lumbridge had, a cheerful countenance, without anything to to be glad about.” These are very cringe-worthy sentences (indeed– it pained me to conceptualize them); there ought not to be any commas in them at all, though you could admittedly argue the comma after “nose” and “countencance.” I’d still not put commas even in those places. A word (or several words, as they rightfully are) of the wise: be smart. Don’t be stupid. Use commas as if you weren’t a dumb beast.

There are also ways to not use apostophes. The worst apostrophic grammatical sins are below:

• The Stupid Plural. When one adds an apostrophe on the end of a word to make it plural, it’s plainly stupid. Observe: “The decorative table’s were pretty.” The decorative table’s what? One of the most common atrocities found in multimedia stores is thus: “DVD’s, CD’s, VIDEO’s, and BOOK’s.” Ugh. Sickening. Apostrophes before S’s are always used for making a word possessive except for one way. The only time it works for a plural is when you’re speaking of a plural amount of words or letters. Observe: “Watch your P’s and Q’s!” “There are no and’s, but’s, or or’s in that sentence, you superfluous git.” Also, apostrophes after pluralized abbreviations, years, and acronyms need not be used: “DVDs and CDs are on sale now. We’ve got all of your favorite artists from the 70s, 80s, and 90s!”
• The Stupid Possessive (the Lack of an Apostrophe). The other worst sin is when people seem to forget that an apostrophe is required to make a word possessive. Observe the horridity: “Brother Johns cereal is going mildewy.” “That is my sisters M80.” “Vernes book is quite an interesting read.” This is simple: if it’s owned by someone or something (such as “the table’s decorations”), an apostrophe belongs before the S.
• Its/It’s (and Thats/That’s, Your/You’re, Whose/Who’s and Other Contractions). The most common of these is the confusion of “its” and “it’s.” Observe an entire slew of cringe-worthy dialogue: “Its time for it’s birthday.” “Who’s birthday?” “It’s!” “Thats my child that your talking about!” “We dont know whether its a boy or a girl yet!” “For you’re information, its a boy. Your a nuisance. Its time for you and you’re fascist family to leave my home.” Icky, icky, icky. The rule of thumb here is to remember whether you mean “it is” (or “that is,” “you are,” “who is,” and etcetera) or simply “its” (“thats,” “your,” “whose,” etcetera). It’s easy to remember if you want to say “it is.” If you’re talking about an it, and it owns something, then it’s “its” and so on. Savvy? Also, please don’t leave out contractory apostrophes. “Dont give me that look. I think its time. Yes, youre leaving now. Get out; youre a squirrelly slew of stifling vomitous masses. I wont abdicate. Were not getting anywhere with this.” Yuck. Use common sense.

There are, of course, a plethora of other types of follies that ought to be avoided and rules that ought to be followed, but to not follow these listed rules is to tempt me to murder. The breakage of others may annoy me, but the above outlined rules are the clergy of punctuation and should never be trifled with!

In closing, I’d like to mention that most people offer the word “hanged” when someone has been “hanged” to death on the scaffold or by way of suicide (“He was hanged” and “He hanged himself”), but, despite being scholarly accepted, this is horrid abuse of the English language! I vie for people to say “hung.” Hung has the ability to slip off of the tongue without choking oneself. “He was hung.” “He hung himself.”

This also applies to “drowned.” Much of the world wishes to say, “You’re probably going to drown’d.” This is disgusting. It ought to be, “You’re probably going to be drowned,” or “You’re probably going to drown.” Also: “He was drowned.” “Drowned” is a past-tense verb and should never be forced into submissive present-tense by any means, British or otherwise.

Please. Use words that don’t make one cringe. Someone might throw up on you. That gives a whole new meaning to “vomitous mass.”