By David Rutledge for Earshot
I saw something on a major news website this morning that provoked a complex play of emotions.
It was the following sentence, from an article about the troubled Pie Face fast food chain: “The one-time, high-flying, hot-pie business has left behind a trail of destruction.”
My first reaction was a sense of loathing so thick that I almost struggled to breathe.
Those bloody commas. What on earth are they doing there?
Not only are they redundant, but they completely destroy the sentence, giving it an odd jerky rhythm and calling unwarranted attention to those prosaic hyphenated descriptors.
Speaking of hyphens, since when does “hot pie” get one? What the hell is going on? Are there no subeditors left on the face of the planet?
My second reaction was more meditative, more detached.
Like everything else, language changes, and with change come new conventions, new modes of expression.
Maybe this comma thing is well on its way to accepted usage status, like split infinitives and starting a sentence with “and”.
The white-hot fury passed, and in its wake came a serene acceptance. All will be well.
Like baking a cupcake
As a language pedant in recovery, that push-pull of outrage and resignation is something I’m learning to live with. But it’s a tension I suspect will never be resolved.