New Books

Went book shopping this morning, saw dozens I would've liked to buy but settled for just two:

Thomas Cahill - Heretics and Heroes discusses the Renaissance, "an era of sublime artistic and scientific adventure, but also of newly powerful princes and armies."  It is also the first era in human history of which we have pretty extensive documentation.

Eric Schlosser - Command and Control documents the 70-year history of trying to prevent nuclear accidents.  Apparently includes some little-known almost-disasters.  Fun!

Daniel Schulman - Sons of Wichita -- the "first biography of the Koch brothers."

The dustjacket wrote:

SONS OF WICHITA traces the complicated lives and legacies of these four tycoons, as well as their business, social, and political ambitions. No matter where you fall on the ideological spectrum, the Kochs are one of the most influential dynasties of our era, but so little is publicly known about this family, their origins, how they make their money, and how they live their lives. Based on hundreds of interviews with friends, relatives, business associates, and many others, SONS OF WICHITA is the first major biography about this wealthy and powerful family -- warts and all.

Hey, when did it become acceptable practice to put a comma before "and" in a list of several things?

1320?

Meh, I guess it has to do with the number of items in the list.  I was always taught it was a no-no.  The comma takes the place of the word "and."

Wikipedia says it is "controversial" but it sounds pretty settled to me.  I was taught wrong! The examples Wikipedia lists to illustrate ambiguity are hilarious!

When I was in elementary school, I was taught not to use the serial comma (except in some cases which I can't recall). In the university, it was a different story; the serial comma was always required.

Never trust guidelines set by newspapers.

Interestingly, apparently journalists are one of the few groups recommending AGAINST the "Oxford comma" -- along with mother England.

When Wikipedia said it was "controversial" I pictured a bunch of proofreaders throwing erasers at each other!

Journalists seem to want to use as few keystrokes as possible. I don't know why they would have a problem with a comma, but I do know that - in the distant past - they avoided every word they could.

An example is the use of the word Vietnam for the country which was named Viet Nam. Back then, the journalists sent their stories via telegram. With a telegram, you paid by the word. The story goes that reporters combined the two words to save money when sending their stories.

This makes sense to me, as the language in the country is essentially mono-syllabic. There are few - if any - words that contain more than one syllable. But wait, you say, "Viet" has two syllables. No, it doesn't. It is pronounced in a single syllable, sounding like the Russian "nyet" for no.