Subaru’s jump
in March sales was, says, the company, because
consumers are responding to our new campaign, ‘It’s What Makes a Subaru,
a Subaru.’
Yes, that comma is there, always – in the print
ads, in the television ads, in the press releases. I’d love to have been
a fly on the wall at the advertising agency during the discussions over that
comma, and whether it should stay or go. Clearly, it’s ungrammatical. But it
also serves a purpose: it connotes a pause in the subvocalised (or, in the case
of the television ads, vocalised) reading of the slogan.
My initial feeling is to disapprove of putting the glorious comma to such mundane
use – but then again I’m sure that many poems use it in just such a manner
at the end of each line. And since there’s no other mark which would serve such
a purpose, perhaps we should treat this expansion of the comma’s role with equanimity.