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Home » Culture and Criticism

Why We Need The Oxford Comma

Submitted by on February 12, 2009 – 10:24 AM82 Comments

garnsie[T]he comma separates items (including the last from the next-to-last) in a list of more than two — e.g.: “The Joneses, the Smiths, and the Nelsons.”   In this position, it’s called, variously, the serial comma, the Oxford comma, or the Harvard comma.   Whether to include the serial comma has sparked many arguments.   But it’s easily answered in favor of inclusion because omitting the final comma may cause ambiguities, whereas including it never will — e.g.: “A and B, C and D, E and F[,] and G and H.”   When the members are compound, calling for and within themselves, clarity demands the final comma. … Although newspaper journalists typically omit the serial comma as a space-saving device, virtually all writing authorities outside that field recommend keeping it — e.g.:

When you write   a series of nouns with and or or before the last one, insert a   comma before the and or or.   “The location study covered labor, tax, freight, and communications costs, all in terms of 1972 prices.”   While this rule is not observed by all publishers, it is valid and helpful.   Professional magazines follow it frequently, and such authorities as David Lambuth support it.   The reason is that the comma before the and helps the reader to see instantly that the last two adjectives are not joined.   In the example cited, suppose the last comma in the series is omitted; freight and communications costs could then be read as one category, though it is not meant to be. — David W. Ewing, Writing for Results in Business, Government, and the Professions 358 (1974).

Here endeth the word of the Garner.   Please forgive any typos; I typed this in by hand and may have transposed a few letters.

The function of language is to communicate; the function of usage rules is to aid in that communication, and it’s clarity and accuracy we should prize, not the saving of space.   I understand why newspaper house style has historically prohibited the Oxford comma, and I don’t have a strong objection to that exception, but the newspaper as a medium is quite possibly on its deathbed, and in any case, the exception does not disprove the rule.

The Oxford comma lets you say what you mean.   That’s why we need it.

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82 Comments »

  • avis says:

    I have a weird relationship with this bit of punctuation. I generally don’t like the way it looks and will omit the Oxford comma – except sometimes I am compelled to use it. I try to not use it but it wants to be in my list so I just give in and use it.

  • La BellaDonna says:

    Thank you, thank you, thank you! I almost sobbed with gratitude when I read this! I have fought a rearguard action for years, defending my use of the Oxford comma – particularly in the field of legal writing, where a lawsuit can hang by a decimal point – or a comma. Even in the legal field, too many people seem to not understand that the way a comma is used can change the meaning of a sentence – Eats, Shoots and Leaves notwithstanding.

    Thank you, Sars!

  • Jennifer says:

    I LOVE the serial comma. I get a bit hysterical when it is not there. It’s probably unhealthy, but oh well.

  • Margaret in CO says:

    I’ve non-professionally edited things for friends, and I always find much resistance to the serial comma. I stand accused of being “comma-happy,” but I’m standing strong in the face of doubt, disbelief, scorn, and suspicion.

    I read somewhere that newspapers are deliberately written at the sixth-grade spelling-and-grammar level for ease of understanding, (but we covered the serial comma in third grade, so that’s no excuse for this!)

    LONG LIVE THE SERIAL COMMA!!! (It’s the only way to be precise!)

  • Lisa says:

    AMEN! Preach it, sister!

  • Chris H. says:

    I once worked for weeks on a research grant. My supervisor read it, and her first, and only real, comment was that it contained too many commas! It didn’t. I was awarded the grant. She never clarified which commas really bothered her; maybe my use of the Oxford Comma drove her batty. Or, as I like to assume, that was the only negative thing about the grant!

  • Samantha says:

    Wow, I feel so much better about myself. I can’t help putting that extra comma in.

  • Alexis says:

    YEAH OXFORD COMMA.

    Five years ago, I wrote a little journal entry where I incidentally produced a good example of why the Oxford comma should exist:

    http://polyhymnia.livejournal.com/2004/02/14/

    (Plus, it’s Valentine’s-time topical!)

  • Whitney says:

    See, I’m just the opposite — if I see a list of items without an Oxford comma, it not only looks wrong to me, it reads wrong in my head. I just finished copy-editing a bunch of academic papers for a small publication at work and about half needed “fixing” in this way (which I justified by saying it was so we’d have a consistent style). Of course some of them also used semi-colons instead of colons, which is another thorny usage battle.

  • Beth says:

    Although I lack any grammarian credentials, I’ve always been a strong supporter of the Oxford comma. It just reads better in my head. If were orally listing off items, I would naturally put in a pause before the “and”, so why not in writing?

    While we’re on the subject of antiquated newspaper usage rules, can we please decide that non-quoted punctuation goes outside quotation marks at the end of a clause? See the last sentence of my first paragraph. If I’m not quoting the comma, why would the comma go inside the quotation marks?

  • Jenny says:

    I want to go home and change into my “Life, Liberty, and the Serial Comma” t-shirt right now. Thanks, Sars! I’m an editor — at a corporation, not a newspaper — and we use the comma here. The fellow editor on my team hates it, though, and we sometimes argue about its usefulness and purpose. I’ll take any little morsel I can get to help bolster my belief that I, of course, am right! Woo!

  • Krissa says:

    I love commas in general. They are probably my favorite punctuation mark – followed by properly-used apostrophes.
    For some reason, this post makes me want to reread Eats, Shoots and Leaves.

  • Liz says:

    I have never, not one little bit, understood why people want to drop the Oxford comma. It’s just so illogical to do so– it’s only trying to prevent confusion, people! :)

    On the other hand, I have equally never understood why punctuation is supposed to go inside quotation marks, but I don’t think I have a chance of Garner helping me out there. (I have heard that all computer programmers have trouble with this, though.)

  • Leigh in CO says:

    Sing it!

    The missing Oxford comma and the misuse of apostrophes are at the top of my ARGH list.

  • Michele says:

    We recently had a big discussion* on the Oxford comma at work- I was editing a document that had multiple authors and there was no consistency. Our company style guides require it, but some of our clients prefer that we don’t use it.

    *I work at an engineering firm so the first part of the discussion was defining the Oxford comma. The writing here would make Sars cry.

  • Matty B says:

    Ugh! Sorry, I hate the Oxford comma. Don’t really know why: it’s an instinctive thing. And I live in Oxford.

    I know it helps if you’re making those complicated lists with lots of ands in them, but can’t you use inverted commas to separate “A and B”, “C and D” and “E and F”?

  • IE says:

    i am a huge fan of the Oxford, and i do not like being “corrected” for using it.

  • c8h10n4o2 says:

    Seeing the Oxford comma left off drives me insane. It gives added (and sometimes much-needed) clarity to sentences and it’s one extra key. How lazy are people?

    I’ve been known to go into the files of one particular student in the lab and just fix any lists in his papers. His grammar is so atrocious that he doesn’t notice and our advisor and I have had long conversations about the Oxford comma and we’re both big fans, so I think that he appreciates it.

  • April says:

    HOORAY!

    I’ve always felt that omitting the comma could cause confusion, so I include it every time. Glad to see my favorite Grammar Guru supports it!

  • Sicsister85 says:

    I love commas. Maybe too much. I am continually amazed that people don’t know how to use them in writing AND reading. I am worried by how many people don’t get inflection and pacing while reading aloud. Does that mean they also don’t get it while reading to themselves? Tragic.

  • Fred says:

    When I first noticed that style manuals were not in favor of the Oxford comma, I was confused. To my mind, it makes far more sense to include it, and although I’ve gotten somewhat used to seeing lists without it, I’ve always wondered why it became common style to skip that final comma.

  • Abby says:

    All I can say is THANK YOU.

  • Sars, I will love you forever for this.

  • Holly says:

    Word, Sars. There is no supportable reason to omit the serial comma. Space saving? Damn, that’s weak. I’ll take clarity any day, and gladly.

  • Madge says:

    I love the Oxford comma, and get quite passionate about its use. Thank you for continuing to champion this unfairly maligned punctuation. :)

  • Julie says:

    Hear, hear!

    When I was in J school, we followed AP style, which says no serial comma. But every journalism/writing/communications job I’ve had since then follows the Chicago Manual, which says you should include the comma. I’m with you (and Garner)–it just ensures clarity. Plus, how much space are journalists really saving by leaving it out? Back in the day of hand-set type, it might have been an issue, but no more.

  • Yvonne says:

    People will have to pry the Oxford comma out of my cold, dead hands.

    Though I think I might be a comma abuser.

  • Linz says:

    Amen for the Oxford comma. I thin it’s a fantastic little bit of punctuation. As an alementary school teacher, I know that a good comma is reason to pause, and appreciate. :)

  • M. Giant says:

    There are lot of reasons why I like my current job better than my last one. The fact that my current house style requires the Oxford comma, whereas the previous one prohibited it, regsiters embarrassingly high on the list.

  • Liz in Minneapolis says:

    WOOOOOOO COMMMAAAAAAS! (Waving lighted cell phone, concert-style*)

    I also have a problem with the final punctuation inside the quotes thing, and frequently rebel against it in casual e-mails and board posts. Then I worry if I’m contributing to functional illiteracy among my correspondents by doing so.

    * I actually did that non-ironically at a 2004 Duran Duran concert. Sigh.

  • Robin says:

    As an English major with a Communications minor, I learned to leave out the comma in journalism, but leave it in for my papers. In my career now that I make my own style rules, I tend to edit it out unless I feel it is needed for clarification. In strings I’ll use a semicolon more than a comma anyway. Of course, I still love to add the emphasis comma behind short phrases. My English profs hated that, but I love it. My logic is, I put in commas when I need a reader to take a pause, and the serial comma just seems, well, superfluous.

  • MCB says:

    I had a college prof who was a big fan of the Oxford comma and always gave this sentence as his example for why it was needed:

    “My favorite sandwiches are ham and cheese, tuna fish, peanut butter and jelly and turkey.”

    Does our hypothetical sandwich lover like PB&J? Jelly and turkey? Or all three together? Only the Oxford comma can tell us!

  • Sue says:

    I am with all of you, except for Avis and Matty B (sorry, nothing personal, folks). I hadn’t even started reading the article when I thought, “Oh Thank God, a voice of reason in the darkness!” I am stridently pro-Oxford comma. Thank you Sars for defending it again! On a Garner-related note, a few months ago I cited Garner to settle a grammar question at work. (I don’t remember what the argument was about specifically.) One of my snottier co-workers, who counts himself as a world’s authority on every topic, sniffed at Garner. “Oh yeah, well, who is he and why does his opinion matter?” I brought in plenty of proof as to Garner’s eminence in the grammer and usage field, and he slinked away quietly. Heh.

  • Ansley says:

    This may be my favorite entry of yours ever! I love the Oxford comma and have had so many people tell me I’m wrong.

  • Suzann says:

    Ah, I always love a good defense of the serial comma.

    I agree with others who’ve commented — I’m not even sure how you can NOT use the serial comma. My first memory of ever questioning a teacher’s knowledge/authority is when we were instructed to leave out “the comma before the ‘and'” in elementary school; I very distinctly recall thinking, “no way, that has GOT to be wrong” and I have stubbornly defended the serial comma ever since. My mom would read my book reports and try to take it out and I would actually get a little rabid about it.

    It’s nice that I get paid now to comma-ize the lists of my coworkers. :)

  • Jennifer says:

    @Sicsister85: I hear you. However, I do not like comma=pause. I am an editor–books–and so many writers put commas in crazy-ass places because they paused while thinking of what to say next, or just ’cause you might pause there while speaking. My friend is a high school English teacher and she has had to (metaphorically) beat this out of her students.

    @Matty B: But why use six more pieces of punctuation instead of just one??

  • Sandman says:

    I know it helps if you’re making those complicated lists with lots of ands in them, but can’t you use inverted commas to separate “A and B”, “C and D” and “E and F”?

    In a word, no. I have to weigh in on this one. I will insist that quotation marks should be reserved for marking text that is in some way quoted. Using quotation marks as a kind of grouping indicator in a sentence makes no more sense to me than using them for emphasis, or to underscore a pun – two uses that drive me absolutely bonkers. As a sidenote, I’ve never understood the British usage that calls these “inverted commas.” That only muddies the waters, to me.

    Misuse of quotation marks is right up there with the mangling of the apostrophe and the disdain of the serial comma on my ARGH List. (Yes, it’s a long list.) Many thanks for making me feel vindicated on the Oxford comma.

  • Isabel says:

    WORD.

    that is all.

  • Maura says:

    I used the serial comma for many years, because that’s what I was taught. When Sister Deirdre says to use a comma, it’s like the word of God.

    Then I read somewhere that it had fallen out of favor, so I stopped using it. I use it now when there could be confusion over where the final item fits, e.g., the example MCB used.

    I’m a fan of the comma, but my favorite punctuation will always be the semi-colon.

  • Meredith says:

    The Oxford comma is god. I’m so glad the magazine company I work for uses Chicago and therefore is pro-Oxford; I am a stickler for it when editing.

    My bigger pet-comma-related-peeve is when writers throw in random commas for seemingly no reason at all. As in, “My bigger pet-comma-related-peeve is, when writers throw in random commas for, seemingly no reason at all.” (“Pet-comma” — I love it!)

    Hearkening back to a discussion of a few days ago, at work we are a single-space crew. But I report for/help edit a news website, and that editor mandates double spaces because, with the software/font she uses, she thinks single spaces don’t stand out enough. (This includes after colons.)

    And I have to throw my hat in with the punctuation-inside-quotes crowd. To me, doing otherwise just looks super-weird and I can’t understand why someone would prefer it, no offense to Liz and Liz in Minneapolis.

    Incidentally, the worst punctuation abuse I’ve ever seen — and I’ve edited doctors — is from a guy in my creative writing group who has been writing for newspapers since the early 80s. He nearly always puts semicolons where commas are clearly indicated. It makes me long for an exacto knife and sympathize with his paper’s copyeditors. As for editing his fiction, I’ve given up on the grammar correx … it fills the page with red ink and makes me look petty. :P

  • Stephanie says:

    Thank you! I am now and have always been a fan of the Oxford comma whether it is needed for clarity in a specific instance or not. It bothers me, just a little, that my major in college is frequently written without the comma. (Science, Technology, and Society)

  • bedhead says:

    I am heartily pro-Oxford comma here, but I don’t love the jab at newspapers just because they don’t jive with your preferred method of punctuation. It’s a slap in the face to all of us still fighting the good fight with regards to print news. Plus, as long as there are old people and over-involved soccer moms, there will ALWAYS be a market for newspapers, believe me.

  • Tim says:

    THANK YOU! It’s my crusade to get those around me to use the Oxford Comma.

    Welcome to the OC, bitch!

  • Linda says:

    They don’t use the Oxford comma in one of the places I write, and learning to omit it has never stopped feeling like literally training myself to do it wrong. Unlike other things (including double-spacing after periods, as we recently discussed), it has never graduated to a simple difference in style. I still think it’s wrong to leave it off, I still hate leaving it off, I still hate editing it OUT of other people’s writing, and I will never feel anything but vaguely dissatisfied seeing my writing without it. Long live the Oxford comma.

  • Anne-Cara says:

    YES. Thank you. :) *waves the Oxford Comma flag*

  • Sarah D. Bunting says:

    @bedhead: It wasn’t a jab; it was a statement. The Oxford comma isn’t responsible, and it isn’t a desirable state of affairs, but my question is why we’d take usage marching orders from a format that 1) no longer needs to delete commas for reasons of space, and 2) may not be around to enforce the rule much longer anyway.

    And I think you mean “jibe.”

  • Diane says:

    @Matty B (I used to date a Matty B who would have no idea whatever what to do with the very concept of an Oxford comma – but a great guy all the same): well, because unless one’s citing a title or quotation, then, single or double, any form of quotation mark is incorrect. That’s why not.

    Why would one add extraneous punctuation like inverted commas (these are most often apostrophes where I come from, and single-quotes otherwise; and they have a specific purpose in life) or double quotation marks, as in your example, when … the serial comma exists? And is correct? And costs only one keystroke, as opposed to requiring both opening and closing inverteds – possibly multiple times, as your example displays? Seems a lot of effort for avoidance when – again – “correct” is right there, and significantly cleaner/simpler.

    @ Yvonne: hee.

    Lest this sound like the ravings of a prescriptivist: I actually relaxed my opposition to sentence-ending prepositions some time back (oh, someone please ask me the reason … !), and I do understand that some mileage may vary (see also the current discussion about two spaces after a period, in The Vine!). I’m entirely capable of both understanding and *using* flexibility in English. I also find my passions for these things waning a little as I age.

    But personally, I’m habituated, and sometimes rather hard-line in my own usages. There is no fathomable reason to “correct” to … incorrect standards. (Journalism being the LAST reference point I’d adopt – yipe.)

    When I have an editor who wants to lay the smackdown on my novels, that’ll be one thing, and I’m not so precious I’d cry about my darling commas. But online, or in everyday communication (my emails at work, etc.)? Don’t even ask me to change, and don’t cry me a “white river” about the way I type. I’m fairly good at it, and don’t take instruction from just anybody.

  • Angie says:

    What makes me nutty are the folks that go back and forth with their use of the Oxford comma. How are you comfortable writing “A, B, and C” in one sentence, then “X, Y and Z” the next one? This just shows they don’t know what they’re doing.

    Long live the Oxford comma!

  • Kel says:

    This is interesting to me because I used to use the Oxford comma all the time, but in my job as a closed caption editor, I was taught to leave it out. That has now bled into my regular writing usage just from having to do it over and over again.

    My personal Pet-comma (love it) is the direct address comma. Because I’m a nerd like that.

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