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The colon is considered one of the most important and interesting organs in the human body. It is the organ that regulates the usage of grammar and punctuation in human speech. It is located in the lower abdomen, behind and slightly below the stomach. ^[1] Scientists, linguists and that hybrid of both known as 'grammatologists' have contended that without the colon, society as we know it would cease to exist. Why do they say this? Let us look more closely at the functioning of the colon and its place in our bodies to understand.

Function

The colon's function in the body is to produce the necessary parts for proper punctuation usage, including commas (,), semicolons (;), parentheses (()) and hyphens (-). It also constructs grammatically correct sentences, following accepted rules of syntax such as not dangling modifiers or prepositions in front of a kitten and then pulling them away, because that's just teasing them. Winston Churchill's well-known rebuke of "This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put" is frequently cited by grammatologists as being evidence of a perfectly functional colon; one of the sort to which we all should aspire.

The Oxford comma

The Oxford comma is a vestigial section of the colon that specifically controlled the usage of its grammatical counterpart, also known as "the Oxford comma." The grammatical Oxford comma gets its name from being used only before "[...]and Oxford" in a sequence. For example:

“Kingston, Cambridge, and Oxford are universities in England.”

~ Some Guy on Kingston, Cambridge, and Oxford

BUT

“Among the highlights of President Bush's recent visit to England were his meeting with Kenneth Branagh, the last member of a centuries-old family and an avid dildo collector.”

~ Newscaster on President Bush's recent visit to England

This section of the colon causes much debate among the grammatology community. In the 1930s, early grammatologists ruled that Oxford was not special enough to receive its own comma, thus reducing the Oxford comma's effective usefulness to roughly nothing. In following generations, grammatologists found that the Oxford comma had quickly gone the way of the appendix. Strangely, even though the Oxford comma is not used, its function has been assimilated into the normal colon in a biological equivalent of a low-priority process. We can use the Oxford comma; however, it is not automatic. We must consider whether or not to use it when the opportunity arises. The only truly functional Oxford commas left (and thus, the only ones that still produce the comma) are in people born before the change was implemented and so their colon had not evolved to phase the Oxford comma into inactivity. These people still use the Oxford comma; however, they are also senile and should be ignored.

Evolutionary grammalogists cite the Oxford comma as a major piece of evidence in their arguments, stating that it is proof positive that bodies ^[2] change over time. ^[3] Creationary evolutionists, on the other hand, maintain it was put there by God for two reasons: 1) to challenge us and our beliefs, and 2) to get a laugh out of confusing numerous generations over whether or not to use the Oxford comma.

Footnotes

1. ^  See picture here.
2. ^  This only applies to humans, as other organisms do not appear to have colons.
3. ^  For more information, see The Elements of Style, Strunk, William, Jr. and White, E. B.