Kwanzaa And The Serial Comma

This post is really, ultimately, about the serial comma and the need for clear rules to avoid confusion, or worse. But that lesson can be taught not only by the grammatical construction I’m about to discuss but also by its context and occasion, to which I turn first.

This brings us — hold your hat and watch your wallet — to the Ward 8 Democratic Committee in what J.Edgar Hoover used to call the “Seat of Government,” i.e, Washington, D.C. About two weeks ago Mary Cuthbert, the first vice president, called Kirsten Burgard “poor white trash.” When Burgard, understandably, objected, Cuthbert repeated that “You’re still poor white trailer trash.” Burgard, by the way, is the only white on the Ward 8 Democratic Committee.

Cuthbert’s comment didn’t go over too well, and there were even some calls for her to resign. She, of course, refused, and the Ward 8 Democrats decided to move on and so shelved the demands for her ouster, which left quite a few Democrats discouraged. Phil Pannell, for example, a past president of the Ward 8 Democrats, remains offended:

What hypocrisy to act as if this thing will just go away on its own. Never in my life did I think I’d witness such an outrageous put-down of a white person just because of her race at one of our meetings. Besides, Mary is a Roman Catholic, and the last time I checked the pope wasn’t looking like Shaka Zulu

Now, however, according to Courtland Milloy, the Washington Post‘s columnist for D.C. affairs, the spirit of Kwanzaa has led to a “path of reconciliation.”

The two women sat alone in the children’s section of a library in Southeast Washington on Saturday: Kirsten Burgard, a white woman who had been referred to as “white trailer trash,” and Mary Cuthbert, the black woman who had made the offensive remark.

….

The occasion of this breakthrough was the Ward 8 Democrats’ annual Kwanzaa celebration, an African American- inspired ritual of spiritual renewal. Those who gathered at the Washington Highlands Library recommitted themselves to ….

Here is where we turn from occasion and context to grammar, for what those Kwanzaa celebrants recommitted themselves to were the ___ principles of Kwanzaa. How many principles? Here is the list of principles as given in the WaPo article, including punctuation: “unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.” (Italics added)

Again, how many principles are listed here? Maybe six, if “creativity and faith” are one principle, like “collective work and responsibility.” Or maybe even five, in the not at all far-fetched notion that “purpose, creativity and faith” are one principle. The correct answer, of course, is seven, but there’ s no way to determine that by simply reading the sentence.

But if you think that list as written is confusing, imagine for a moment that you are an editor, or a teacher reading a student paper, and you came across that list without even the faint guidelines the WaPo provides its readers. What, that is, if you came across this unpunctuated list and you had the responsibility of deciding where to put the commas: unity self-determination collective work and responsibility cooperative economics purpose, creativity and faith. No way to do it. You’d have to know not only that there are seven principles but also what they are.

The tradition of newspapers dropping the serial comma (the comma before the last “and” in a series of items) originated in the desire to save a valuable space in their narrow columns. Newspaper style has been copied by those whose approach to punctuation is to throw a bunch of commas at a page and let them land where they will, as well as by those who argue that most of the time things are clear, and on those occasions where the absence of a serial comma might lead to confusion (which happens frequently when individual items in the series are themselves joined with an “and” — “collective work and responsibility,” “creativity and faith” … oops, that last was two items, not one) they simply throw one in as needed. Thus, for these latter loose grammarians, the “rule” is … don’t use a serial comma, unless you need one. (As though there were a shortage of them)

This simply won’t do. The attraction, appeal, even beauty of rules is that they remove discretion, which is to say they increase efficiency by reducing the number of decisions that have to be made every time you put finger to keyboard. A “rule” that makes you stop and think what to do every time you have a series, in addition to leading to reader confusion when (as in Milloy’s column, you are your editor don’t stop to think), is simply no rule at all.

Joyce Scott, another member of the Ward 8 Democrats, instinctively grasped this point when she asked: “How can we tell those kids at Ballou High to behave if we go around ignoring the misbehavior of adults — especially adults in positions of leadership?”

How indeed. Actually, you do it the same way you do when you explain that discrimination on the basis of race is wrong … except when it isn’t. Unfortunately, Democrats have a lot of experience doing this.

Say What? (4)

  1. e December 22, 2003 at 8:11 pm | | Reply

    So Kwanzaa is basically a celebration of socialism and national separatism?

  2. StuartT December 22, 2003 at 10:45 pm | | Reply

    e…Yes, that just about covers it. Though you omitted one integral component of this “holiday”: that’s BLACK separatism. Were it otherwise, you would not see our President genuflecting at its commencement.

  3. jab December 23, 2003 at 3:21 pm | | Reply

    The holiday is certainly NOT about black separatism, nor about communism…

    I am white of Italian ancestry and I celebrate Kwanzaa with my African-American friends… although I have heard on rare ocassions that some groups choose to exclude non-African-Americans (and this goes against the whole point of Kwanzaa), my experience has been the exact opposite… with most groups hosting celebrations welcoming of anyone who wants to participate…

    As for the socialism/communism angle… that is certainly open to interpretation… but with the groups I have worked with and been affiliated with, the collective work & responsiblilty (ujima in swahili) is more about communities coming together to improve conditions for themselves… (ie not wait for the govt to come in and fix it… shouldn’t you conservatives be applauding that?)… as for cooperative economics (ujamaa), again, the groups I have been affiliated with interpret that as encouraging entrepreneurship in minority/poor communities so that they can help themselves… again, shouldn’t conservatives be happy about that?

    Yes, I know the history of the holiday… and there certainly were some unsavory characters, including some of the founders (karenga, for example)… but the holiday, like most holidays, has grown beyond its limited beginnings…

  4. Anonymous December 23, 2003 at 6:27 pm | | Reply

    Well, I’m glad that’s cleared-up. Just a couple of quibbles though, Jab.

    If Al Qaeda were to extend you, a white of Italian ancestry, an inviation to participate in an operation–even further, if they “were welcoming of anyone who wanted to participate”–would you feel more predisposed to their cause?

    As for the communism, you certainly do interpret Kwanzaa broadly–though I hope yours is one shared by many. As an aside, you seem to regard self-reliance and industriousness as an exclusively conservative concept. If so, we should all pray that “you liberals” spend an eternity out of political power.

    And finally, you acknowledge (obliquely) the holiday’s quite inauspicious beginnings. Though to call Kwanzaa’s founder, Ron Karenga, “unsavory” would be to call Pol Pot a bit eccentric.

    Karenga, nee Ron Everett, spent Kwanzaa’s formative years in prison, where he was serving a sentence for torturing two women. One of whom testified that she and Gail Davis were whipped with an electrical cord and beaten with a karate baton after being ordered to remove their clothes. She testified that a hot soldering iron was placed in Miss Davis’ mouth and placed against Miss Davis’ face and that one of her own big toes was tightened in a vise. Karenga also put detergent and running hoses in their mouths, she said.

    Charming.

    Jab, if former KKK leader David Duke tortured two women and subsequently christened his own contrived “holiday,” would you grant it the latitude to “grow beyond its limited beginnings?”

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