was she trying for irony?

[cellio]

Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation sounds like a great book for grammar nerds, but I am put off somewhat by the 1.5 punctuation errors in the title. (One is debatable and might be excused by context (it refers to a joke containing the phrase); the other is clearly wrong.)

Comments

[steven.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fan of the serial comma, but I'd hyphenate "zero tolerance."

[cellio]

I wasn't until I encountered nesting. The serial comma makes phrases like the following easier to parse: "salad, salt and pepper, and vinegar and oil".

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

My favorite serial-comma argument is "I'd like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God."

(That was the example that convinced Steve Jackson Games to change its house style to use the serial comma.)

[cellio]

Oh thank you! I knew there was a perfect example out there somewhere (and now that you mention it I think I've even heard it from you before), but I just wasn't coming up with it.