Lapsing Into a Comma

As obnoxious buzzwords like 'lol,' 'brb' and 'ttyl' become increasingly commonplace, it's very reassuring to have a spokesman for the integrity of the English language who does not sound like a Victorian schoolmarm. Bill Walsh, the author of 'Lapsing Into a Comma,' makes a compelling case against the degradation of language we are experiencing in the Internet era while retaining commonsense and modernity in his assessment of the ways English is changing both in print and in speech.

Walsh, a veteran newspaper editor with the Washington Post, establishes himself not only as an adroit stylist but also a humorous, personable writer. It is a testament to Walsh's skill that, in a book about the often-dry subject of language, his distinct voice shines through; an astute reader can pick up on the author's obsessions outside of competent writing with telling references to legendary tennis players, old movies and beloved TV programs sprinkled among Walsh's carefully crafted writing and boundless examples of what can go right and wrong in print.

The key strength of 'Comma' is Walsh's championing of traditional grammar and mechanics while always encouraging thoughtfulness to the words immediately before any potential writer or editor. Walsh blasts what he calls the 'search-and-replace' school of editors for sacrificing good judgment to mindlessly apply rote rules of grammar and usage. As on-line news takes increasing prominence over traditional newspapers, Walsh's fresh thinking in 'Comma' is exactly the revisionist attitude the media world needs. Conciseness has its place, but the nearly limitless room afforded by Web pages makes the old-timer newspaperman argument for automatically replacing words like 'that' to 'save space' more than a little obsolete. Walsh, however, firmly removes himself from the burgeoning camp radically ? and, the author argues convincingly, poorly ? redefining English as technology evolves. He insists on capitalizing 'Internet' and refuses to support omitting the hyphen from 'on-line' and 'e-mail,' even as common usage deviates from this ideal. Throughout 'Comma,' Walsh condemns the efforts of what he labels the 'technologyhasnoroomforspaces crowd' to abbreviate language in order to keep pace with the speed of the Internet as sheer laziness. His championing of traditional usage in the realm of Web copy is a refreshing antidote to the barely literate ramblings the worst Internet key-punchers call writing.

This is not to say all of Walsh's arguments hold up. At times, he places himself too firmly in the old-timer camp ? his thoughts on capitalization often border on splitting hairs and, at other times, his pleas for a new approach to language do not ring true. The claim that 'media' can be a singular, not plural, noun especially feels like a surrender to common (mis)usage. However, these poorly constructed entries are the exception to the rule of the clear writing and enjoyable readability of the shrewd style guidelines and helpful anecdotes comprising the whole of 'Comma.'