Speccie reader John is puzzled by an American expression that we’ve heard only recently in Australia: when a politician is facing a major decision it is being called a ‘come to Jesus moment’. This has John scratching his head. It comes from Billy Graham rallies (and similar events) when Billy would call on his hearers (at the end of his talk) to ‘make a decision for Jesus’ and come forward to the front of the meeting. This was seen as a life-changing moment. It’s much older than Billy, going back to 1876 – when there were evangelists travelling across America holding their rallies in huge tents. It’s often used cynically these days of those who have worked out which way the political wind is blowing, and switched their opinion accordingly.

I keep coming across ‘neurodiversity’ in news stories, and I always feel baffled by it. Many of the definitions being offered don’t help. For instance, they tell me that ‘neurodiversity’ means that human brains function in diverse ways. And that’s supposed to be news? Are they claiming this has just been discovered? This was supposedly only discovered in 1998 (when the word ‘neurodiversity’ first appeared in print). Surely the human race has always known this? But as I read on I realised what sort of linguistic switch is being pulled here. The word was invented by the autism community so that they wouldn’t be called autistic. Now, for anyone who is autistic, or has an autistic child, my heart goes out to you. But there’s no need to fiddle with the language, since ‘autism’ already says this perfectly well. In the 1990s there was something called the Autism Network International.

As far as I can make out, they want to argue that autism is not a disability, it is only a difference. Unless, of course, they are looking for funding under the NDIS –the National Disability Insurance Scheme. Then it becomes a disability again. Or is that just me being a smart-alec, sceptical journalist? (In that case I apologise.) The neurodiversity paradigm argues that diversity in human cognition is normal, and we should stop saying the people on the autism spectrum have a disorder. But this strikes me as a pointless talk-around. Surely TV’s Doc Martin (played by Martin Clunes) was at the low end of the autism spectrum, what used to be Asperger’s syndrome? And simply saying that the character is ‘neurodiverse’ really tells us nothing we didn’t already know, and doesn’t change his situation.

Another Speccie reader (Sue) has asked me to settle a punctuation dispute she has with a friend: can you (she asks) put a comma before the word ‘and’? This is the age-old debate over the ‘Oxford comma’. Do you write: (1) ‘Apples, oranges, pears, and bananas’ or (2) ‘Apples, oranges, pears and bananas’? Most linguists go with (2) – put a comma after every item on a list except the second-last item. But the style guide of the Oxford University Press says otherwise – they insist on a comma after every item on a list, including the last item just before the ‘and’. Clearly there’s room for disagreement here. So, what do you think? To Oxford comma or not to Oxford comma? I am an Oxford comma man. I think it adds to clarity. Lynne Truss in Eats, Shoots and Leaves says that in Britain the standard usage is to leave out the Oxford comma. Then she hedges her bets by wanting to take it on a case-by-case basis, saying, ‘Sometimes the sentence is improved by including it; sometimes it isn’t.’ I am less likely to have a bet each way on this. I’m in favour of including it. In this I’m supported by Fowler’s Modern English Usage. So, Sue – go for it! We are living in the age of the Comma Man.