The Comma Code

Over the years I have joked that  the "comma"is the bane of my existence. I have even said that commas and I just don't get along. Little did I know that for some people,what I was really saying is that I don't get along with As#h&les.

Evidently,in the corridors of  some very prestigious Boston Hospitals, and now in some fairly well-known businesses in Minneapolis,you can hear people adding the word "comma" to the end of a sentence.

If you hear this, these people do not have an odd punctuation fetish, rather they are talking in code.

THE CODE

When comma is spoken at the end of the sentence it stands for the word that follows that comma ---As#h&le.

Tracy Kidder, author of Mountains Beyond Mountains credits world-famous physician Paul Farmer for starting the comma code. According to Kidder this is the first sentence he ever heard spoken in the code.

"I feel ambivalent about selling my services in a world where some can't buy them. You can feel ambivalent about that, because you should feel ambivalent.Comma"

As Kidder writes,

"I understood he wasn't calling me one--he would never do that;he was almost invariably courteous. Comma was always directed at third parties,...

Why stop at the comma? Think of the potential for punctuation euphemisms.  The folks at A.Word.A. Day have been thinking about substitutes for the run of the mill swear words, as well.

"In "Pudd'head Wilson's Calendar", Mark Twain elaborated on his attitude toward invective:

"In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied often to prayer."

My friend Caroline has adopted Farmer's Comma. She says she's using it routinely at work and that it's providing amazing enjoyment. In fact, Caroline swears by it.

Note: Caroline is a real person who is now speaking comma, Caroline is not her real name.