How I sold out

I have done the very thing I thought I would never do. No, I am not talking about the sins of Romans 7 that are endlessly debated. What I have done is to start using commas for periods when I send text messages—or to skip punctuation altogether. That is to say, I have sold out, fallen from grace, caved to the casualness of the world I abhorred.

My degeneracy, so far, is confined to the text realm, but that is cold comfort to my conscience. How much more trouble would it be to interrupt the frenzied stream of letter-pecking to locate the jots-and-tittles section of the keypad? But I have been slowly—ever so slowly—corrupted by the ways of my interlocutors (God bless them, I am not their judge). And corruption, ladies and gentlemen, is always a choice, make no mistake about it.

One reason I always swore I would not forsake the textbook laws of semi-colons, colons, dashes, and other minor grammatical elements was a good reason: clarity. One wants to be clear. I should think so, at least. I should think there is something deep in the human soul (and not just mine) that craves being understood above all things the heart may crave:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” (Psalm 139:23, ESV)

Another reason was considerateness. Good grammar is just plain courteous. My laziness is my reader’s extra burden. He must waste seconds of his life he will never get back looking for the division of words that bring intelligibleness to such thoughtless bulimia as the following:

“Can’t find the mayo I’m looking for at the store first world problem I know.”

What?

Or this regrettable entry:

“Be at Suzy’s in an hour.”

Is that a schedule update or a command? The context will tell, some say. Good luck with that. How many plans have been ruined, lovers split, and wars lost because of an avoidable omission of grammatical politeness?

In the old British schools, B.C. (before cell phones) children were made to punctuate the following:

“Charles the First walked and talked half an hour after his head was cut off.”

The tykes were forced to know before the bell rang whether the author was reporting the miracle of a decapitated monarch walking and talking or a sequence of events. Here is your assignment, if you are man enough: Using one period and one comma, solve the elementary school exercise above, and then text it to a friend. You probably owe it to someone.