To comma or not to comma, that is the question

Will We Use Commas in the Future?

Maybe.
By Matthew J.X. Malady
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2014/01/comma_usage_rules_are_unclear_could_the_punctuation_mark_die_out_completely.html


In his amusing article "Will We Use Commas in the Future? Maybe"  Matthew J. X. Malady explores the question . about the comma as an endangered species, ( http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_good_word/2014/01). 

 Mallady used this food metaphor  to  explain the dilemma. . .

In some ways commas are like ketchup and mustard. We’re glad those things exist. They surely make our french fries and hamburgers taste better. But we’d all survive without them. Some assert that the same is true of commas.

The article  includes  Linguist and Columbia University professor John McWhorter suggestion   that we “could take [the commas out of] a great deal of modern American texts and you would probably suffer so little loss of clarity that there could even be a case made for not using commas at all.”

As for me,  I'm all for the comma but would add my own metaphoric take. . . adding a comma to a sentence is like stopping to catch your breath. But to avoid comma excess,  use the comma  when you need to take a deep breath,  take a pass if all you need is a  quick pause.