Sometime around a child’s third birthday most kids learn to count to three and beyond. Before that one and two are it. By the end of grade school they can usually count to whatever number they are inspired to count to. By senior year in High School they’ve pretty much given up counting past two for most things because, really who wants to be the third wheel?

So when I saw a recent notice (thank you Cory Doctorow) that someone was floating a petition around the idea of using the prefix “hella” as a new indicator for this size number: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that would be 10^27 if you’re really wondering) I shook my head - too many comma’s.  If you’ve read this blog for very long you probably have an idea where I stand on THOSE.

I understand the math guys who feel compelled to communicate the relative size of something like distance between our sun and oh, say the third star to the left of Jupiter’s fifth moon on December 12, 2012 as seen through Hubble’s squishendy splurch telescope.

I even understand the OCD guys who have to have a name for everything like the uvula, and paraphiltrum  {blog author makes squishy doubtfilled twisty face where philtrum is definitely out of square expressing satirical disbelief}

But really, for the rest of us?  Not critically important to know.

It’s just another number we’ll never see on the family truckster’s odometer.  Because let’s face it - they haven’t made trucksters that would go over 100k since 1963.

On the other hand, it would be easy to make the top Hellion seller’s list and that would be quite good. Easy to get your word count in under the top limit of 65 hellion.

A hellion dollar contract for your novel would result in a commission of about $ 250000000000000000000000000.00 give or take a few pennies assuming a commission rate of 25% which I think would be quite reasonable if the Agent sold a book for that much.

Something like a quarter hella I think. Maybe 2500 yotta? or .25 Octillion maybe (if Octillion exists, the one before it is Septillion so I’m guessing here and no you don’t want to see the condition of my check register…it is sad.)  And I don’t even want to think about how much tax you’d have to pay on that.  I guess the good news there is you’d only have to pay social security tax on the first $90K or so.  But that one sale would wipe out the budget deficit so I guess it’s not such a bad thing really, then the guys in Washington would have to yammer about something else.

The point is that in the context of scale a number that big to most of us is just a jillion, a gazillion, a mmmph, or gobs. Frankly, it’s more than a handful which in the wise words of my now graying former teenage guy compadres is just ” a waste”.

Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be entertaining to watch the look on the teller’s face as she tried to figure out how to key in a number that exceeds the bank computer systems capacity?

Scientific notation to balance my checkbook? Definitely a hella long shot.

It’s your first day as a novelist, the day you put down that novel you’ve been reading and say to yourself “I can do better than that”.  You decide that you can fly.  So you step to the edge of the cliff and look over the edge, but the clouds below look so soft and fluffy that you forget about gravity.  You look above and see an eagle soaring overhead.  It’s close enough to see individual feathers flex and part where the thermals caress the trailing edge of the graceful predator’s wingspan.  By now you’re sure it is meant to be.  You are convinced that as soon as you step off the edge you will be lifted and soar along your words to some place high above mere mortals. 

You are convinced that this is the moment, the place where your life changes forever.  Slowly you lean forward nudging your toes toward the edge of the earth and prepare to lift yourself into the skies unfettered by ties to the soil beneath. You begin to gain momentum, that sense of falling you that will carry you into the stratosphere and you raise your face to the greet the sun.  One moment away one step into the chasm and you are away, off to meet your destiny.  

A hand from behind you grabs you by the collar and yanks you back from the edge.  A flutter of activity rattles around you as other authors chatter and rumble as they begin to strap you and clothe you and check to see all your catches are caught.  Someone tells you you’re so lucky to have been saved.  They turn you back to the edge and show you a space where the clouds have parted in the canyon below, revealing rocks, trees and hundreds of feet below an icy river hidden in the shadows.  ”See…See…” they say. You feel rescued and terrified all at the same time as you process the separate and conflicting instructions that pass in front of you like a parade.

Someone hands you a helmet, an axe and a book of survival skills.  They fill your pack with snacks, a thermos of coffee, maybe chocolate, a length of rope sufficient to hang yourself or lash yourself to a raft if things got desperate.   A tiny jar of commas goes into the duffle containing the tools of your trade, which magically appears at your side.  In one pocket is a gift certificate to an office supply store, another holds a map.  You are offered a hundred titles from Strunk and White, Sol Stein, and a chorus of published heavy weights touting “on writing”, “for dummies”, with themes of dialog, characterization and pace.  All the while the others beside you are gearing up for the same adventure. 

Now you can approach the precipice with the tools and knowledge to take that step.  Reach up, tighten your straps, check your watch for the time and place a finger into the wind to see which way it blows.  Once again you step to the edge, this time aware of all the pitfalls that may await you as you reach up to touch the sky.  Left and right, beside you are the others.  You look from expectant face to confident eyes and on three… 

I hate commas. I know, it’s an irrational thing to hate something so insignificant. But, commas holds so much power over me. The comma makes me feel inadequate and somehow less competent than almost any other punctuation mark. Now, I can deal with parenthesis (in fact i use them with reckless abandon, and feel no guilt whatsoever when I do). I use a curly brace (a pair actually) often.

if($something == $somethingelse){do something with it};

No problem there. I have mastered Slashes and square brackets in many ways. But that dreaded comma? Not so much.

I have found that I am not alone. At least one other comma victim exists. They posed the question “Are commas over or under used?” to Ask a Ninja and this is what the Ninja had to say about it…