Entropy affects everything under the sun.
ENTROPY: Inevitable and steady deterioration of a system or society.
This includes language, spelling, and punctuation.
Note the comma in bold after the word “spelling.” According to today’s style manuals it doesn’t belong there.
“…Danedream sailed past fellow countrymen such as Star Appeal, Lando and Manduro …” (Telegraph.co.uk).
“…has terrorized places such as Columbine, Virginia Tech and Fort Hood…” (Usatoday.com)
“… A dozen major research universities including Georgia Tech, Princeton, Duke, Johns Hopkins and the University of Virginia announced plans…” (Atlanta Journal Constitution)
This usage is based upon the erroneous assumption that it is allegedly redundant to place a comma before the word “and” in a list.
But look at this ridiculous example:
“with hard shells in a variety of colors such as red, yellow and green.” (onlineathens.com)
Are those three colours (red, yellow, and green) or two (red, and yellow and green)?
So obviously the last item in such a list should be offset with a comma to avoid confusion.
“Levi’s classic checkered patterns in basic monochromatic colors, such as gray, blue and red, and are made mostly from … ” (Jakarta Globe)
Who would be insane enough to call something “blue and red” monochromatic ??
Try to figure out this one:
“… offerings such as gadgets and utensils, cutlery, bakeware and cookware.” (PRNewsline).
Huh?
Or how about this:
“Examples include the Medical Examining Board, Council on Forestry, Banking Review Board and the Law Enforcement Standards Board.” (Milwaukee Journal)
With such a lengthy name that board should just call itself the BRBATLESB for short.
“Examples include hedge funds, money-market mutual funds, securities lenders and government-sponsored enterprises.” (Fox News)
Exactly, the securities lenders are government-sponsored (or more accurately, backed up by taxpayer funded bail-outs).
The old rule was to always use a comma. Today such inconsistency of punctuation rules is absolutely moronic and it proves that the modern trend to drop the final comma in a list of three or more makes no sense whatsoever.
Just another example of “evolutionary progress” from the modern monkeymen who have no sense.
The comma is not a redundancy – it stands for a pause. Its proper use is already defined by our absolute authority – the King James Bible:
“And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:” Genesis 1:14.
That ends the debate.
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Posted on July 22, 2012