I blame my spelling nazi-ism on the uptight, nit-picking, intolerant, awful English professor I had my first semester of college - if there were more than 2 "to be" passive verbs on a page of writing we turned in, it was failed. Forget it if you couldn't manage to follow the proper rules of grammar and punctuation - you were worse than the lowest form of life on the planet and don't even bother showing your face in class. The sad thing was, it wasn't even an English class - every freshman was assigned this generic "Common Learning" fluff class and it was taught by various profs from every dept; I was an unlucky one who ended up with an English dept prof. My roommate (who was not Nicole Kidman or God, unfortunately), got a music professor and did nothing; I worked my *** off and barely managed a C - and I'd gone in thinking I was a decent writer! So not cool.
"Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another as if we were one single tribe.” -King T'Challa, Black Panther
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is. ~Winston Churchill
For every grammar "rule," there is at least one exception. Check various style guides. They are all over the place with commas, semicolons, etc.
What I found is that since the advent of word processing (geesh! how old AM I?), two spaces after a stop such as a period, is no longer the norm, but the exception. The reason I was given is that it saves on the size of the file. Makes sense to me.
As far as the serial comma, fewer commas are better in the training material I write. I don't use it unless the statement would not make sense.
I'm an English major and slept through the one grammar course I had to take in college. I had intense grammar education in HS. If you left ninth grade without understanding the basics of English grammar, you either slept through class, didn't attend class or were dumb as a basket of hair.
