Now it is time to reveal. .

. . .two junior high school urban legends that haunt me still, with special emphasis on the one that conjures up a punctuation rule.  When I was in ninth grade at Webster Central School, there were two teachers about whom retold tales existed.  They were both maiden ladies.  One was a math teacher.  Let's call her Miss Smith.  Another was an English teacher.  Let's call her Miss Jones.  I would be PC and call them Ms., but I'm sure those two very traditional ladies would turn over in their graves, if, indeed they are dead, if labelled in such a modern fashion.  

            Now, Miss Smith, the math teacher, had snow white hair.  It was suggested by some that she was a bit young for such tresses.  There were actually two tales told about her.  (Twice Told Tales?, that's a lit. joke)  Some said that her brother had been killed in a terrible car accident.  She was told of his fate, and when she woke in the morning her hair was completely WHITE!!   The other tale, which I preferred, said that her boyfriend had been killed in THE WAR, (no war was specified, just THE WAR).  She was told of his fate, and when she woke in the morning her hair was completely WHITE!

              Now Miss Jones, who was my English teacher, lived in the village of Webster.  It was said that a girl in our class once went to her house to drop off an assignment, and that Miss Jones's mother was in a hospital bed in the living room.  The elder Jones was dying and the smell was reportedly awful.  There were two reasons we found this story hard to stomach.  First, Miss Jones was one of those little old ladies, who always wore light gray dresses with handkerchiefs pinned to them.  She smelled decidedly of toilet water, which was a term for perfume in those days.  We all felt she was so old, that it was impossible that she had a living mother who could be dying in the living room.  One of our classmates told us that her sister who was six years older had heard the same story when she was in ninth grade.  This suggested that the story was untrue, or, horror of horrors, old Mother Jones had been dying in the living room for at least six years.

           Why do I recall Miss Jones with such clarity.  Because she taught me the rule about commas when used in a series.  In Miss Jones's class, you never put a comma before the and.  In other words, in the example, "I love tofu, hummas, watercress and sprouts."  Never, she warned us, put a comma before the conjunction (and).  It would be like saying, "I love, tofu, hummas, watercress and and sprouts."  Even worse if the conjunction were a "but."  Then your sentence would read, " I love tofu, hummas, watercress, sprouts and but not horse radish."  This rule was so pounded into me that I accepted it as gospel.  

             Then came the horrible day that the PA ENGLISH people and the ADVANCED PLACE MENT people declared there would be a comma before the conjunction.  I fought it for awhile, but they broke my spirit.  I now punctuate my series like this.  "I shout, howl, gurgle, and stutter."  Which to me reads, "I shout, howl gurgle, and and stutter."  I guess that is fitting.