Another parlor trick for the collection.

At dinner on the lawn beside the amphitheater I sat with another editor of the paper and a family she knew from church. The son was an incoming freshman, and his mom, it turned out, teaches grammar and usage seminars for corporations. I floated that old standby, the serial comma, during a lull in the conversation, and she wholeheartedly upheld it. Then she returned with a question of her own: How can you create a grammatically correct sentence that has five "and"s in a row?

Her answer required a little story. There was a painter commissioned to inscribe "ham and eggs" on a storefront window. The owner of the shop came out to inspect the work, and, slightly dissatisfied, declared, "You need more space between 'ham' and 'and' and 'and' and "eggs."