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Nobody has been able to explain what correct usage is, however.

The Chicago Manual of Style has detailed explanations of correct comma usage. So does Strunk and White's Elements of Style. You can also look up individual recommendations. Things like the Serial Comma have Wikipedia articles that quote both of those sources as well as half a dozen more.

Commas to delimit prepositional phrases have only recently been deprecated. I was taught to use them as well.

And the Chicago Manual of Style Online says ..

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Usage.html?page=1

Q. I work for an organization that uses a fair amount of corporate lingo in its publications. The expression "visibility into" seems to be widely used in place of the expression "insight into" . . . this confuses me (okay, it also annoys me). Based on the common definition of "visibility," does it really make sense to say that one has "visibility into" something? Before I start a campaign to eradicate what I see as an unsightly phrase, can you tell me if the phrase "visibility into" meets the standards of acceptable usage?

A. Sometimes it's necessary to avoid turning your nose up at a word or phrase that seems to be the awkward brainchild of new ventures -- unless, of course, something old and standard does the job as well or better. A glance at the first hundred or so of the 147,000-odd Google hits (as of Monday, October 20, 2003) for "visibility into" suggests that the phrase is being used these days primarily to do a couple of things: (1) convey that whatever is going on -- corporate accounting, say -- is entirely transparent, or (2) indicate that software can offer some understanding of activities that are difficult to conceptualize or see -- such as data from myriad sources moving over a network, or products moving along a supply chain. An example of the second use might go like this:

Without the kind of software that provides continuous visibility into activity across a range of networks using a variety of protocols, you might as well send your entire staff on a field trip, asking them to report back every few seconds with a question: "Can you hear me now"?

This sort of usage can easily turn into jargon (or euphemism; think "surveillance"), but I wouldn't automatically rush to find a substitute. First, the phrase itself doesn't violate any grammatical rules. Second, in technical contexts that involve physical monitoring, "visibility into" might be more appropriate than the relatively metaphorical "insight into" -- a phrase that's lost most of its visual roots.

But, yes, it's the Chicago Manual of Style. Go find out what Oxford says, will you? And let us know.

According to whom? From the Chicago Manual of Style FAQ:

Q. Which is the correct singular possessive form? “Professor Davis’ class” or “Professor Davis’s class”? [...]
A. In its 15th edition, CMOS allowed the style shown in your first example, but the new 16th edition (7.21) no longer recommends it, although it is not incorrect...

The best jokes are never understood on first telling.

Back to the subject at hand, however, why not consult the Chicago Manual of Style? To cut to the chase:

So, in our efficient, modern world, I think there is no room for two spaces after a period. In the opinion of this particular copyeditor, this is a good thing.

Seems pretty reasonable to me, and it's from quite a credible source. Read the full page for justification (no pun intended).

And whose standards are we talking about here? MLA style? Chicago?

Sadly too few people even know that these style guides exist, much less have the ability to intelligently discuss the point.

http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/home.html

The folkish State has to make up for what is today neglected in this field in all directions. It has to put the race into the center of life in general. It has to care for its preservation in purity. It has to make the child the most precious possession of a people. It has to take care that only the healthy beget children; that there is only one disgrace: to be sick and to bring children into the world despite one's own deficiencies; but one highest honor: to renounce this. Further, on the other hand this has to be looked upon as objectionable: to keep healthy children from the nation. Thereby the State has to appear as the guardian of a thousand years' future, in the face of which the wish and the egoism of the individual appears as nothing and has to submit. It has to put the most modern medical means at the service of this knowledge. It has to declare unfit for propagation everybody who is visibly ill and has inherited a disease and it has to carry this out in practice. On the other hand, it has to care that the fertility of the healthy woman is not limited by the financial mismanagement of a State regime which makes children a curse for the parents. It has to do away with that foul, nay criminal, indifference with which today the social presumptions of a family with many children is treated, and in its place it has to consider it- self the guardian of this precious blessing of a people. Its care belongs more to the child than to the adult.(1)

In this passage, Hitler asserts that the state must take a greater interest in caring for children. He suggests that the state should curtail procreation by unhealthy people.

Citations,(2) bitches. Use them.

The quotation you cite seems to appear on a website belonging to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.(3) Frankly, I have no idea what this essay _is_. There is no context whatsoever. The context provided is completely baffling. They fail to provide any properly formatted citations.(4) The website claims the essay was published in the Nov/Dec 1999 issue of "The American Enterprise." A publication under this name could not be found in Ulrich's Periodical Directory online. (5)

With today's ease of access to full text materials, there is no excuse for this sort of sloppiness.

1. Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. 19th impression, Edited by Chamberlain et al, Translated by James Murphy (New York: Reynal And Hitchcock, 1941), http://www.archive.org/details/meinkampf035176mbp (accessed December 7, 2008)
2. The Chicago Manual of Style Online, s.v. "17.146 Documentation II: Specific Content > Books >Electronic Books > Electronic editions of older works," http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch17/ch17_sec146.html (accessed December 8, 2008).
3. Lapin, Rabbi Daniel. Adolf Hitler, http://www.aapsonline.org/brochures/lapin.htm (accessed December 7, 2008).
4. The Chicago Manual of Style Online, s.v. "17.149 Documentation II: Specific Content > Periodicals > Information to be included," http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch17/ch17_sec149.html (accessed December 8, 2008).
5. Ulrichsweb.com, http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ (accessed December 7, 2008).

The folkish State has to make up for what is today neglected in this field in all directions. It has to put the race into the center of life in general. It has to care for its preservation in purity. It has to make the child the most precious possession of a people. It has to take care that only the healthy beget children; that there is only one disgrace: to be sick and to bring children into the world despite one's own deficiencies; but one highest honor: to renounce this. Further, on the other hand this has to be looked upon as objectionable: to keep healthy children from the nation. Thereby the State has to appear as the guardian of a thousand years' future, in the face of which the wish and the egoism of the individual appears as nothing and has to submit. It has to put the most modern medical means at the service of this knowledge. It has to declare unfit for propagation everybody who is visibly ill and has inherited a disease and it has to carry this out in practice. On the other hand, it has to care that the fertility of the healthy woman is not limited by the financial mismanagement of a State regime which makes children a curse for the parents. It has to do away with that foul, nay criminal, indifference with which today the social presumptions of a family with many children is treated, and in its place it has to consider it- self the guardian of this precious blessing of a people. Its care belongs more to the child than to the adult.(1)

In this passage, Hitler asserts that the state must take a greater interest in caring for children. He suggests that the state should curtail procreation by unhealthy people.

Citations,(2) bitches. Use them.

The quotation you cite seems to appear on a website belonging to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons.(3) Frankly, I have no idea what this essay _is_. There is no context whatsoever. The context provided is completely baffling. They fail to provide any properly formatted citations.(4) The website claims the essay was published in the Nov/Dec 1999 issue of "The American Enterprise." A publication under this name could not be found in Ulrich's Periodical Directory online. (5)

With today's ease of access to full text materials, there is no excuse for this sort of sloppiness.

1. Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. 19th impression, Edited by Chamberlain et al, Translated by James Murphy (New York: Reynal And Hitchcock, 1941), http://www.archive.org/details/meinkampf035176mbp (accessed December 7, 2008)
2. The Chicago Manual of Style Online, s.v. "17.146 Documentation II: Specific Content > Books >Electronic Books > Electronic editions of older works," http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch17/ch17_sec146.html (accessed December 8, 2008).
3. Lapin, Rabbi Daniel. Adolf Hitler, http://www.aapsonline.org/brochures/lapin.htm (accessed December 7, 2008).
4. The Chicago Manual of Style Online, s.v. "17.149 Documentation II: Specific Content > Periodicals > Information to be included," http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ch17/ch17_sec149.html (accessed December 8, 2008).
5. Ulrichsweb.com, http://www.ulrichsweb.com/ (accessed December 7, 2008).

We put question marks and exclamation points inside the quotes only if it is part of the quoted content. No. No. No. Lord, are public schools that bad?

Apparently they are; you clearly don't know as much as you think you do. According to Chicago, you do put question marks and exclamation points inside the quotes only if it is part of the quoted content. [1][2]

As for your comments that I am "wrong", my response is this: "Citation Needed."

Notice the period inside the quotes because it is part of the quoted passage.

[1] Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed., page 191, as cited and quoted in the CMS FAQ for the 14th edition.
[2] Chicago Manual of Style FAQ.

According to the Chicago Manual of Style's FAQ, it's an initialism:

Q. I had always understood the term acronym to mean an abbreviation that spells a word, such as snafu (per Webster's), but in your manual [the fourteenth edition, 1993] the two terms are used interchangeably. Can you tell me where you get your definition of acronym?

A. Since 1993, we've realized that we needed to be more precise. In the fifteenth edition, therefore, we distinguish between acronyms, initialisms, and contractions, all under the umbrella of abbreviation, as follows: acronym refers only to terms based on the initial letters of their various elements and read as single words (NATO, AIDS); initialism to terms read as a series of letters (BBC, ATM); and contraction to abbreviations that include the first and last letters of the full word (Mr., amt.). These distinctions can also be found in the multivolume work Acronyms, Initialisms, and Abbreviations Dictionary, edited by Mary Rose Bonk and published in its twenty-seventh edition in 2000 by Gale Research Incorporated.