The Current - Bonding over the Oxford comma

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Do you silently judge someone who says “less” when they mean “fewer”? Do you have very strong feelings about the Oxford comma? You may want a word with Ellen Jovin. For years, the author of Rebel with a Clause has been setting up a folding table on the street to talk to people about grammar which she says can actually bring us together in divisive times.

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The proper way to use y'all. Y'all. Tell me, does the apostrophe go before or after the eight? No, at all. What are you talking about? Before. Oof. Thank you.

I agree with that. Apostrophies can be tricky, so apparently can calm us. I'm a huge Oxford comma person. Yes. And it drives you. crazy at work, whenever I'm like... I had to teach my ex-husband the difference between well and good, and I should have known that very minute that it would be X someday.

If you've ever had a heated debate over the Oxford comma or found yourself silently correcting a sign at the grocery store, my next guest is your kind of person. Ellen Dovan has spent years answering the public's grammar questions right from her folding table on the streets of New York and beyond. And she has since taken that table on across America journey, writing a book and inspiring a documentary, both called Rebel with a Clause. Matt Galloway spoke to Ellen in March.

Here's their conversation. Do you understand the grammar angst that you heard there from those people, suggesting that perhaps if somebody couldn't get the rules of grammar right, they may end up being the ex-husband someday? I have a feeling there may have been something else involved in the X part of that. Just a feeling. Just a feeling. In this documentary, which is lovely, you say that it gives you transcendent joy to meet people and talk to them about grammar.

What is it that gives you transcendent joy about grammar? Well, I find other people inherently interesting. So grammar is language glue that binds us to. together, but then on top of it, while we're talking about something that I find inherently fascinating and apparently quite a few other people do, we get this human connection, the sense of community, and it just feels so joyous and sometimes even raucous. You know, it's just fun, and I feel people are hungry for fun, so that's pleasurable for me. How did this start for you? You've called yourself a professional grammar nerd. Well, I, before I had the grammar

table. I had a long-term project called Words and Worlds of New York. New York has 800 documented languages, so I was doing this year's long project where I would study a language, run around town, find people to speak it to me, review language learning products and so on. And I discovered the miracle of online language groups for nerds. I mean, technology connected language nerds from around the world together in a way that never happened when I was a kid. So I was in all these groups and blogging and I was on my computer so much and I thought I don't want to be on the computer I want to be around people so I just moved the activity to the street with a table with a table a very cheap table I think it was $40 US dollars and so you travel you've gone to all 50 states in the

United States you set up the table and the sign says grammar table and then there are prompts right there are there are prompts in case um yes people sometimes come up and don't remember the question that they had an hour ago or don't know what they want to ask. They feel kind of shy sometimes. So there are things on the sign like comma crisis. I also want people, I have conjunctive adverb addiction, which is not really an actually established term, but that's for the people who are addicted to furthermore, more, moreover, nevertheless, however, that's my term for that. And then there's also a place that says any language, which is, or all languages, I forget what the wording is. But it's gotten me into trouble because people say, do you speak all of them?

Which I don't. I definitely don't. There's 7,000 languages in the world. But I want people of all language backgrounds to feel welcome and accepted and comfortable talking at the grammar table. What is a comma crisis? Is it just the Oxford comma? Oh, there's so many different types of commas. I mean, I could give you a catalog right now. I feel that that would probably not be the most exciting use of our time. But it could be anything. I mean, for example, my neighbor, Jim Smith, lets his dogs out at 4 in the morning. Do you put commas around the neighbor's name or not? Like that kind of thing. You can go on and on with commas. There's so many things to talk about. Can you explain what the Oxford comma is for people who are not nerds?

It's a pretentious sounding name for what is also often known as the serial comma, S-E-R-I-A-L. The problem is if I use that term, a lot of people don't. don't know what I mean. It's the comma that people optionally put before the and at the end of a list. So I ordered salad, spaghetti, and soda. Do you put a comma before the and? That's the Oxford comma. What kind of people come up and ask you these questions about the comma or anything else that you may want to discuss at the table? That's the great thing about this is that all kinds of people come up. I mean, people who are, you would expect, like professional writers and editors, book nerds, like all librarians, those are kind of what you would expect.

But that's really just a portion. It's really a cross-section of humanity. I get people who haven't finished secondary school. I get people who are, you know, PhDMDs. It's the whole range. I have people who are down on their luck who just happen to be passing by and they see something that looks fun for them. It's really everyone because we all use words and we all have puzzles periodically about how to treat something in writing or in speech. So that's the that for me is the magic. That it's really, it includes everyone. I was wondering what the most common question that you might get would be. And I was, there are just any number of, of things that you could imagine. As you said, those puzzles and dilemmas that people might face

in how they use language. Is there some, are there ones that that stand out that, that you know this is coming, you know this, you could keep score. Do you know what I mean? Yes, there's one question that I've probably been asked in every state. Which is? And it's about what we just mentioned, the Oxford Comet. That is a U.S. obsession. I don't know how it is in Canada. I would like to find out.

But that's the thing that has captured the public imagination about punctuation, I guess. So it's not lie versus lay? Oh, gosh. No, people don't even like talking about that. I mean, the attitude, people are sometimes curious, but the thing is, a lot of times, even if you explain it, they're not going to remember it. And they say that. I'm not just saying that. They say that themselves. They'll take a sheet, maybe pin it up on the refrigerator if I write it out for them. They also, a lot of people feel that those should just, you know, that anything

goes there, you know, that people shouldn't be so pedantic and picky about the form. I use all the standard ones myself, but I, I know, I'm not bothered if someone says I need to lay down for a minute. That doesn't bother me, even though I would say lie there. So that's really interesting because grammar is often, it's a vehicle towards scolding. Do you know what I mean? The people, people will silently, there's the shirt, I'm silently judging your grammar. I've been scolded. I've been scolded for ruining the English language by being too accepting of language variety.

Scoalded by other grammar nerds. By people who come up to the table. And so what do you say to them in the face of the scolding? Well, I, it doesn't, you know, it's not. always so effective to make this point. If people are wound up about it, I often just will listen, to be honest, because I'm on the street. I don't need to get in a fight there.

The reality is there's a lot more language variety than people realize because they grow up in, than many people realize. You grow up in your language community. You hear certain things, but, you know, you cross the Atlantic and someone will be doing something different in Ireland or in India. And that doesn't mean, the difference doesn't mean it's wrong. It's part of the world of global English now. And I find that really interesting.

And I don't want to berate people. I want to make them more excited about finding out about those things. Are you also, though, somebody like me who will whisper when somebody says less, you'll just say fewer under your breath? We might have to get into a fight about this. Oh, dear. I do. I am pretty straightforwardly by the book. book, you know, for countable things, I typically use fewer for what are known as mass nouns

or uncountable nouns, like, you know, if you had a big pile of salt, that would clearly be less. But there are situations, and I think, you know, it's American, it's an American dictionary, but a dictionary like American heritage does, and also probably other dictionaries as well, does a really good job of documenting about how the lines are blurrier than people think, the history of it, although people don't usually use fewer where I would want to use less. The opposite does happen. For example, you wouldn't say my pet pig weighs fewer than 53 pounds, right? No.

I don't think I'm thinking about it in real time. No, you wouldn't. And that's countable. So that's just an example. It's a little messier than is often conveyed publicly at the grammar table by committed grammar visitors. We are speaking on public radio, and so the answer, I mean, our audience will already have the answer here. But does it matter if people use correct grammar? I think there's confusion about what, I don't typically talk about correct grammar at the grammar table. I answer the question

that is asked of me. And there are different applications for language. Some are formal, some are informal. I think it is valuable for people to understand their national variety of standard English if there is such a thing correct is probably the wrong word it's following the rules of grammar per hour of the rules of language

well yeah for certain contexts it's good it's just if you are if you are a person who reads and thinks you're going to encounter a lot of standard language and I think it's good to use that if you want to participate

in that in your professional life if you want to be a part of that it just is a good idea to be knowledgeable about aspects of language use. It's also just interesting intellectually. I think grammar has the worst reputation that people think it's so boring. It is not boring. It is actually also a way for people to acquire other languages more easily. Yes, there are language geniuses that can just be plopped into place where they don't speak

anything of the language and they just pick it up. But a lot of us, if you say, okay, if you have present perfect in this language, this is what you do in this language with those forms. That's so much more efficient than just trying to pick things at piecemeal for an average adult learner. It's also, and you wrote this piece in the New York Times in 2022, it's also about more than grammar, right? You said that how talking about grammar with other Americans has created bonds in a polarized society. I mean, we are in this, and it's not to get too political, but we are in this moment where people don't speak with each other. They don't talk to each other. They yell at each other. They talk past each other. What do the conversations that you have

at that fold-up table with Americans about grammar suggest to you about what's possible when people speak with each other? I think we have to dedicate a certain percentage of our time as human animals on this planet focusing on something that feels good. I feel as though people really, they go straight to the thing that we're most likely to get angry and, you know, or worse about and fixate on that. And it's just wounds, wounds, wounds. It's like salt in the wounds over and over again. We have to have time because really when you catalog, even people who have wildly different opinions, when you catalog the moments of their days, typically they look very similar. There's a lot that we have in common. And one of the things we have in common is

using language. We may have differences of opinion about it. But in the structured grammar zone of the grammar table. You can have bonding pleasure in debating it. You can fight about an Oxford comma. They're mock fights and then people go home happy. That is that is a positive thing that is building something that helps us overcome the fissures. We would like you to bring the grammar table to Canada. Well, you should know that I was actually in Canada yesterday for about two hours. What? I just want you to realize I'm very I'm very Canada committed we had our honey my husband my Brant Johnson my husband made the film and we had our honeymoon in Canada years ago we were driving to Ann Arbor yesterday from Detroit and Brant saw a sign for bridge to Canada so we drove over it and ended up in

Windsor so we hung out there for a bit we love Canada well your table is welcome here anytime thank you I'm sure you'll I'm sure I'll be crossing over with it There's going to be, there will be demands and public appearances that will be booked because of this. It's a real pleasure to talk to you. I enjoy the film, but also just as a fellow nerd who is often corrected on his grammar politely. I really appreciate what you're trying to do. Thank you very much for this. Thank you so much.

Ellen Jovin is an author and grammar expert. You can learn more about her grammar table journey in her book and film, both called Rebel with a Clause. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.