In most instances, the humble comma has a good reason to remain humble. It has a role to play but as any linguist will tell you, there used to be a time when it made its appearance a great deal more than it does today. Advocates of the Oxford comma have ingeniously come up with the 'I saw the pope, a rapist and child molester' joke but it remains a joke and is only good for a laugh. Whatever anyone tells you, the absence of a comma is very rarely the cause of a misunderstanding. Where a comma is needful, the writer will assuredly supply one.
Recently, the Malaysian Court of Appeal gave a judgment in Malaysia's former Prime Minister Najib Razak's appeal and A. Kathirasen, a Malaysian journalist, published an entertaining article singing the praise of the humble comma with the sensational title How the Humble Comma Sank Najib's SRC Defence. Did the humble comma really do that?
