Whew!  I found out today that I’m not the Lone Ranger of the Grammar Police Squad.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo differs from his boss, President Trump, when it comes to writing.   According to CNN, while President Trump tends to forego standard guidelines for punctuation and capitalization in his tweets, Pompeo has apparently “had it up to here” with improper comma usage among State Department staff.  As a result, two emails have been circulated among State Department staff in recent months with detailed instructions pertaining to the proper use commas.

According to the emails, Pompeo prefers the Chicago Manual of Style writing guidelines.  Personally, I prefer the American Psychological Association (APA) style because I think it’s far more straightforward than Chicago style, but I guess Mike likes a challenge.  Here are two excerpts from one of the staff memos–one for including commas and one for removing them.

 

Attention to writing detail might come with the Secretary of State job.  CNN alliteratively noted that Colin Powell “famously focused on font and font size,” and Condoleezza Rice was picky about margins and “cramming too much into the regulated length for memos.”  Maybe I should consider becoming Secretary of State.  I already have the grammar skills.