Drama of the Comma

There’s something delightful about commas, about placing them with precision, poise, purpose.  Commas show vigor, a clean mind, a playful spirit, like a crisply fanned bowtie in whimsical color.  Consider, for instance, this simple sentence, sans any comma:

Me too ma’am.

As it is, it reads just fine.  The point is made: Our interlocutor is affirming or informing his female counterpart, perhaps his elder, that he is of accord.  Nothing terribly the matter.  Of course not.  But now, try it a little differently:

Me too, ma’am.

Aha!  A subtle pause before footing the home stretch, and what’s more, intentionally done.  This shows refinement, and also an ear for music, for the little trip in cadence—think of glancing your boot’s toe on an unexpected crack in the pavement—brings pizzaz, pop, punch, like the syncopated lick from a saxophone fitting in just a few more notes than you thought the measure would hold.

Bravo.  But now, consider the same sentence again, just one variation further:

Me, too, ma’am.

It’s a bird; it’s a plane; it’s preposterous.  There is simply no need.  Pure show-off, pure dandy: yes, you did learn or intuit that “too” stands as its own clause and can buffer the double comma, and now you—you snot-nosed brat-of-a-grammarian—are going to flaunt that knowledge for the world.  It’s obscene.

And it’s wonderful!  No need, no need at all—you never would speak the double out loud (or, rather, out-quiet) in colloquial colloquy, but the point is, you could.  You can!  In the wonderland of language, you have these kinds of powers.

Commas should be used (one might even say must be used) in certain cases.  Lists of three or more, for instance.  Suspended clauses, particularly if you’re not fond—though who isn’t these days?—of dashes, are another example.  But pass beyond these staples, and you quickly enter a world of glorious optional-ness, in that same region where artists mix their tubes of oils and chefs pinch flakes of spices.  It’s all about what he thinks feels right, what she feels to be just so, for the service of a particular eye, palate, or ear.

Take even the most basic case, the list.  What is to be done between the ultimate and penultimate?  The Oxford comma (incidentally, not used in Oxford) or straight to the conjunction?  It depends: Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme might be just the thing; but then again, if you’re feeling ponderous and if you have a little time, perhaps it’s better to have parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

Commas are the great reminder of the freedom which is our alphabetical birthright.  They hearken to that glorious moment in the past, meditating upon our smudgy third-grade chalkboard, when it dawned on us that the point of grammar was not to deduce what the rules required, though rules there were.  No, once the rules were in place, their beautiful insufficiency pointed beyond to new fields of creation.