Treasure Tuesdays: Left to Write - Comma, Comma, Comma, Commachamelion, you come and go...

The day of writing, reading, and books.

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Back in the seventh grade I had a student teacher that I once faced off with. Now, I was not a confrontational student. I rarely spoke out of turn. In fact the few times I whispered to a friend, I got caught because the teacher heard my voice which he wasn't used to hearing when it wasn't time to speak. During teaching times I listened. I raised my hand if I had a question or knew the answer. I didn't understand why the other kids didn't just behave themselves so we could get on with it. We could learn so much faster if the other kids just behaved.

I remember thinking that in the first grade. I still thought that in the seventh.

But then there was that student teacher. A pretty young thing, not any bigger than I was at the time. At twelve I had reached my full height of 5'5" and I had more than the beginnings of a figure which I was constantly teased about. That's a whole other story that involves stuff I don't want to talk about. Although I loved reading, and I loved writing, and my regular teacher thought I was pretty good at it, I abhorred the English classes when we were being taught grammar, and the rules, and all those boring things that turn out to be pretty handy for a writer.

Although I have yet to find a reason to diagram a sentence. By twelve I had started developing an attitude, because... breasts - and did I really need another

lesson on quotation marks, and exclamation marks, and commas? Well, it turns out I did, because this student teacher instructed us that a comma before the word "and" was now unnecessary. I looked up from the book I was secretly reading. Apparently the new, hip thing to do, was to just forget about that pesky comma before the word and. And was the comma. It didn't need a comma. It was quite happy living life without the comma. It had declared itself emancipated from the comma. I guess this was my hill to die on. I did not put my hand up. "But commas tell the reader to take a little breath. If you don't put the comma before and, then you're rushing the sentence." "That was the old way. Now you don't put it there. So when you write the sentence," she wrote on the chalkboard, "He ate grapes, strawberries and bananas', you don't put the comma before the and." "Of course you do. Otherwise you're rushing the sentence. It doesn't sound right. There's a difference between saying, "He ate grapes, strawberries, and bananas," and saying, "He ate grapes, strawberriesandbananas." The first sentence has three distinct fruits and the second sentence has one fruit and a word no one knows and can't be made into a song like supercalifragilisticexpialadocious." "That's silly. You don't need the comma when you read it. You can see there are three fruits." "Yes, but when you say it, you say it with the comma."

"But you're not saying it, you're reading it." "When I read it, I say it in my head. Grapes, strawberries, and bananas. Not strawberriesandbananas."

Okay, that went on for awhile and truthfully I can't remember exactly what I said, but this is the spirit of it. I know she was getting exasperated because I wouldn't back down and let her move on, but hey, she's the one who was wanting to be a teacher and I was nothing compared with what her future probably brought her.

So after that, I made sure I put commas in front of 'and' when I handed in my papers, and she crossed out my commas with her evil red ink pen, which drove me crazy because my real teacher didn't mark up my paper that way with red ink all over it. Especially since back then everything had to be hand written and I didn't want red marks all over it. If I wanted red marks I would put them in myself. What is the point of making a good copy if someone is going to come along and draw all over it? (Note I have since had to deal with editors putting red marks all over my manuscripts but I have learned to deal with that and have found it helpful because it's not in its handwritten perfect stage). There was one time my real teacher corrected the word 'ain't' in my dialogue and changed it to 'isn't', and I had to take it to him and explain that "ain't" is a word when someone speaks it because that's the way they talk. I think he saw my point.

He would have been a terrible editor for Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. Turns out...I WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE COMMA!

I have no idea where that teacher is anymore. She's old now because I'm kind of

old. But she was wrong. Oxford commas, which I did not know that was what they

are called because she didn't tell us that, are important. After all, they have a university, and a printing press, and shoes named after them.

I bet she can't say that.

And as it turns out, they do a great deal more than just take a pause so you can hear all the words.