It’s an odd name…for a butterfly…a comma. Formally known as Polygonia c-album. Raggedy edged wings with a little white fleck on the underside resembling a punctuation mark, hence the name. Not to be confused with an Oxford comma, a point of housestyle that avoids the confusions of phrases such as “eats, shoots, and leaves” although it’s not quite that pointed.
Anyway, here’s a comma that alighted on the edge of our conservatory yesterday (first day of biological spring here in Cambridge, it was over 18 Celsius and there was so much bird, butterfly other springly activity, sadly almost all killed off in the nearer 10 degrees of today’s grey day).
Seeing these butterflies always puts me in mind of preppy-pre-hipster-hipster band Vampire Weekend and their marvellous allusions to grammar and Peter Gabriel. Who gives a %$*& about an Oxford comma? This is a Cambridge specimen!