Hello, readers.

Did you notice that comma? The one right after hello? I know, it must be a typo.

WELL, IT'S NOT.

I hate to sound preachy (~choir hums~), but somewhere, somehow, society has run amok. I know this isn't a surprise to everyone, but I don't mean morally, politically, fiscally, or religiously. I mean grammatically. We have forgotten how to write.

You see, my attentive pupils, a comma is supposed to separate a greeting and a name. It is, "Hello, Stephanie, how are you?" It is NOT, "Hello Stephanie, how are you?" You (should!!!!!) address your emails, "Hi, Bill," not "Hi Bill."

And this is where it gets me. Every email I receive is "Hey Cazey," "Hi Cazey," "Hello Cazey," and I'm out of examples. I want to ask, Did you sleep through second grade when we learned where to place commas? You who can cite the correct spelling of there/their/they're can't even put a comma in its proper place!

Where did the comma-less greeting come from? We are a society overrun with comma abuses, i.e. you put more commas in your sentences than in your chocolate chip cookies. FYI, a comma does not go at the end of every prepositional phrase, in your sentence. <<That last sentence is wrong. So is this:

Recently, she decided to stand, in her coat, like a statue.

Besides that example being wtf-inducing, there shouldn't be ANY commas in it. But I see people do it all the time. And if you're going to overuse commas, can you at least drop one in the RIGHT place?

Look, I'm not even arguing for you to adopt the Oxford comma. There's just a lot of vacillation that goes into my emails because of comma neglect like "Hi Cazey." Do I respond to my boss, "Hi, Jan," which either a.) points out her grammatical flaw or b.) succumb to the masses?

No, I will not succumb; I will write a blog.

P.S. "Dear Jan" is right. Don't start "Dear, Cazey"-ing me.