The Oxford Comma Has Been Murdered by a Serial Killer

How many of you were bewildered when Stephen Colbert mentioned “the Oxford Comma” on his show? How many laughed, but didn’t know what he was talking about or cared, for that matter? Well, today, I shall enlighten you. The serial comma, as it is more commonly known, is the comma that is placed between each item in a series, including the comma before “and” or “or” of the last item. For example, the colors of the American flag are red, white, and blue. It is referred to as the Oxford Comma because that second (or last) comma is required by the Oxford University Press style guide. Interestingly enough, it is also required by a majority of American style guidelines, but American school children learn that it is unnecessary. I know this for a fact because I was once an American school child, and my children also are, as we speak, learning that the last comma is optional. Lucky for them that they have an in-house editor who insists on reading their essays before they turn them in.

When I read their essays, I most often have to add the serial comma. They have been taught to leave it out, and I am trying to re-teach them, as I have had to re-teach myself, to put it back in. The long and short of it is that the last comma in a series belongs there; in my mind it is not optional. The only time I can agree to omitting it is if the statement is absolutely clear and you have to eliminate a single character to conform to a prescribed character limit. But really, how often does that happen? My guess is it only happens to people who “tweet,” but if you’ve ever read anything on Twitter, you know that most writers have a blatant disregard for proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Do you see how nicely that little comma sits there between punctuation and spelling, announcing that there is just one more thing to add? I love it and I can’t for the life of me figure out why it was ever thought of as optional.

Consider the title of the grammarian’s favorite book, Eats, Shoots & Leaves. It is obvious that the meaning changes with the addition of a comma after shoots. Here are my words of wisdom: (note the correct usage of the colon) always use a comma in a series of nouns, verbs, and phrases. Be especially careful if it is not actually a series, but an appositive. What I mean by that is things can become very confusing if you have a sentence with a series in it, but within the series, you also have an appositive that must be set off by none other than the comma. If there is a chance that your series will be ambiguous, such as “She opened the door to George, the gardener and the housekeeper,” use the comma if you mean three different people or change the wording of the sentence if you mean that George is both the gardener and the housekeeper to “George, who is both the gardener and the housekeeper;” or change it to “George, who is the gardener, and the housekeeper,” which ensures he is not both.

One last note on the Oxford Comma. If you are writing for a particular establishment that requires you to follow a specific style guide, look up the rule on serial commas in that style guide and follow it. If you want to be a rebel and use the comma sparingly (or what I think of as lazily, because, you know, it takes a millisecond to push the comma key), then please, I beg you, be consistent. Either use the comma or don’t — just be sure to use it the same way throughout your writing.