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By JAMES J. KILPATRICK
Universal Press Syndicate
In a recent issue of National Review, Bill Buckley penned a lovely little farewell to William Shawn, the late, great editor of The New Yorker. No one writes these lapidary pieces better than Buckley, and this was a jewel.
He recalled that in 1970 Mr. Shawn - he was always “Mr. Shawn,” and never anything else - purchased long excerpts from Bill’s “Cruising Speed” for first publication in the magazine.
Subsequently he invited the author to lunch, in order to discuss the final editing. In the course of their conversation Mr. Shawn said, “Mr. Buckley, I really do not think that you know the correct use of the comma.”
Well, pooh! In that reproach the venerable Mr. Shawn exhibited a nice conceit. He doubtless knew “the correct use of the comma” in The New Yorker, but modesty should have stopped him at that point. In many instances, there is no such thing as an invariable “correct use” of the comma.
Consider, if you please, the use of the comma in serial constructions. Is it “red, white, and blue” or is it “red, white and blue”? Wilson Follett, one of the all-time great authorities on copy editing, had no doubts or reservations. He demanded ;# comma between ALL members of a series. He defended this rule “on the commonsense ground that to do so will preclude ambiguities and annoyances at negligible costs.”
The Chicago Manual of Style, perhaps the ultimate authority on these things, is just as positive: “When a conjunction joins the last
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