On comma ground: Where the US English team stands firm

@wwaycorrigan

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For native English speakers of the Old World, namely inhabitants of Britain and (whisper it) Ireland, it can be hard to accept that our New World ancestors have better language conventions than us. For some things, that is.

USA: Home of the brave. And home of the useful Oxford comma, too.

It comes down to providing consistency and clarity and there are at least two areas where US/American English trumps British.

Team of us

In terms of consistency, the British English tendency to use plurals when referring to a team is difficult if not impossible to defend grammatically.

Taking the current English Premier League champions as an example, Manchester City is a team. Yet, we English speakers in Britain and Ireland almost always refer to the team using are, as in 'Manchester City are the champions of Europe.' It sounds weird to us to say 'Manchester City is the champion of Europe.' (I am aware that for those who favour the red half of Manchester, neither form is acceptable. What's more, as I write this blog, City's Champions League defence has come a cropper.)

I recall reading US newspapers, particularly the sports sections, during my first visit to the States, aged 15, and feeling that there was something amiss. The use of the singular for a team didn't seem right for somebody brought up on plural constructions for such an entity. It felt a bit cold and impersonal. A team is made up of people, after all.

It is, however, the Yanks who are on firmer ground if one strictly adheres to grammar rules. The team-is-made-up-of-people defence is understandable yet the idea of a team is that it works as a unit. (As the rather goody-two-shoes remark goes, 'There's no 'I' in team'. The equally inane retort is, 'But there is a me.')

Were 'Is a team' to go up against 'Are a team' in a grammar court, the former would surely win out. But hey, one doesn't tend to have much fun in court.

Clarity contest

In a clarity context, nay contest, US English tends to favour the use of the Oxford/serial comma.

In my school days, I was repeatedly told that it was wrong to place a comma before the 'and' in a sentence containing a list of items of three or more things. England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales — correct. England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales — incorrect.

One could say such a rule is rather insignificant. It matters little whether the comma is there or not. And for the minimalists amongst us, as I am, excluding it makes more sense. Fewer commas means less ink required in printing. Every little helps.

'Rather than being doctrinaire against the use of the Oxford comma, those of us brought up to obediently omit it should be open to its vital value.'

However, the Oxford comma is not a case of Yankee extravagance. It does serve an important purpose. Its omission can lead to much confusion.

To take from Steven Pinker's impressive and witty The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century, consider the following:
'This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.'
'Highlights of Peter Ustinov’s global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.'

The lack of a comma before the 'and' in those sentences can lead to confusion (even in speech, with that absent comma, one may be inclined to leave out a helpful pause between the last two items). Thus, Nelson Mandela had a more colourful, far-reaching past, than most of us had realised. And the author of the book referred to has some powerful parents — or at least one of them is omnipotent.

So rather than being doctrinaire against the use of the Oxford comma, those of us brought up to obediently omit it should be open to its vital value.

Period pain

While we're on comma ground, one US convention — in academia in any case — that doesn't seem to have much logic behind it is the inclusion of a comma after 'i.e.'. What clarity does it provide? (I find some of American English's quotation-mark punctuation guidelines rather illogical, too.)

It's the same for Americans' use of full stops, or periods as they say, after each letter in an initialism. Why not USA rather than U.S.A.? It's superfluous punctuation, particularly when the actual words must be said together to make proper sense.

Sticking with period punctuation, I prefer the style choice more common in British English where there's no full stop placed after an abbreviation that starts with the abbreviated word's first letter and ends with its last. So it's Mr and Mrs for me, full-stop free.

However, abbreviations that don't end with the final letter of the word get a full stop. For example, co. for company (or county) and inc. for incorporation.

Most of these differences are matters of style. My general approach is if a certain rule serves no obvious, helpful purpose, then there's no need to use it, particularly when there's a viable, comprehensible alternative.

As we've seen with the Oxford comma, though, opting for less punctuation isn't always the best strategy. Nonetheless, old habits die hard. I still feel like I'm committing a violation if I use it.

When it comes to using plural forms for a team, its everyday use in British English has led to its acceptance. Through dedication and repetition, Team GB have won the right to say it makes sense.
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More artificial intelligence, less human intelligence

@wwaycorrigan

[For an audio/vlog version of this story, click here.]

While not officially a mechanic, my father is fairly well-versed in the workings of the combustible engine, its accompanying components and other such machines.

'You can leave your brain at reception. It's not needed here.'

In the rural Ireland of his youth, the sight of a car was a memorable event. Thus, being more technical than academic — the latter wasn't really open to him in any case — he was drawn to discover how these mesmerising motors operated. From what I've witnessed, many of his peers from similar backgrounds did likewise.

In this earlier phase in the rise of the machines, it seems the desire to understand the transformative technology was widespread.

That the rate of change was slower and physically more in one's face, so to put it, this inclination to educate oneself about the new developments made much sense. Even Luddites had a decent grasp of what they were opposing.

AI kills the radio and video stars

Today's more rapid change, occurring in what is a largely intangible ethersphere, even for netizens, has left many of us in the dark about the workings of the digital devices driving our daily interactions.

When problems arise, as they invariably do, one is unlikely to have a DIY solution, outside of a reboot or the more drastic factory reset. And, as most will know only too well, many digital difficulties, online obstacles, require a fix far more convoluted than an unassisted system restart.

In my November 2022 piece, The digital dystopia, I wrote about some of these tech troubleshooting travesties.

'Large language models aren't quite at the stage where they can churn out Churchillian-style rhetoric but, by all accounts, they can come up with bread-and-butter prose satisfactorily.'

Now, with the inexorable advance of artificial intelligence (AI), not only are many of us ignorant about the nuts and bolts that put it together, but its raison d'être is to do the majority of thinking for us.

Rather than go through the hassle of doing strenuous study, racking your brain, AI will rake the internet for you and come up with a satisfying solution almost instantly.

So on the artificial face of it, life will be less arduous.

In my line of work — if I can be said to have one — the need for human editors and proofreaders will greatly diminish, nay already is diminishing.

Grammarly and the like have been aiding writers for the last number of years. Such grammar software is far from perfect but it's improving rapidly. (As Grammarly currently is, I wager that it's better than the average native English speaker at spotting grammatical errors.)

If Grammarly is taking the place of the real-life editor or, worse still, the need for one to grasp basic grammar, ChatGPT and its competitors are doing away with the need to be able to write in the first instance. Again, these large language models (LLMs) aren't quite at the stage where they can churn out Churchillian-style rhetoric — who amongst us can? — but, by all accounts, they can come up with bread-and-butter prose satisfactorily.

I imagine that LLMs will do — perhaps already are doing — a lot of the heavy lifting in compiling TV/radio news bulletins and suchlike. Heck, this might even tempt me back to the newsroom! (Refer to my piece Making the bell toll for us while we still can for more on my previous newsroom nightmares. The DJ-3000 from The Simpsons episode Bart Gets an Elephant, first aired on 31 March 1994, also comes to mind here!)

As for learning a foreign language, this could become obsolete save for those who have a special interest in it. Surely, in the very near future, Google Translate will be viewed as a caveman-like tool for communicating in a non-native tongue. 'What, back in the early 2020s you still largely tried to speak a foreign language?'

Active intelligence

With all of these AI tools, one can try to be an active, inquisitive user. I mean active here in the sense of not merely accepting uncritically the AI answers. For example, coming back to grammar, if it suggests a correction, one should at least know why it's doing so.

In this way, one can also learn. The rise of AI doesn't have to signal Armageddon for humans — or at least Armageddon for the use of one's critical faculties.

While engines and motors rendered certain lines of employment redundant, it can be argued that they paved the way for today's health and fitness industry. Work for many of us may be more sedentary now compared to previous generations, yet we still seek physical stimulation — be that simulation or real. And machines have certainly helped bring about mass tourism, problematic as that has become all the same.

Similarly, AI comes with opportunities and challenges. Some academics and experts fear it has far more of the latter. For sure, it is set to be more intimately disruptive in the lives of every one of us compared to previous technological advancements.

With that in mind, should refusing to engage with AI become next to impossible, trying to ensure that we remain in control of it rather than it controlling us, is key.

Keeping well informed and as much in the know as possible is a start. The overall direction of travel, though, suggests we're entering an AI Bright Age, with a new Dark Age for human intelligence.
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