Oxford Commas Are Rarely Necessary
There is no argument more fun on the Internet than a grammar argument. People dig in their heels, refuse to budge, and in the end none of it matters. As if to compound the meaninglessness, most professional writers, at any given moment, are one client or new job away from having to publish under a style guide that offends their sensibilities.
I was already thinking about finally tackling this when my friend Ann Handley wrote a nice post about why we love arguing about this stuff. Well, now I have to weigh in.
My favorite hill to die on, as also called out in Ann’s post, is the Oxford (or serial) comma. Some years ago, a colleague introduced me to the wonders of deleting the unnecessary Oxford, inserting them only as need for clarity. The backlash by those who would include Oxford commas at any cost was recently renewed by a case in Maine where the failure to use one cost Oakhurst Dairy in Maine in an overtime dispute; in that case, of course, the comma was necessary for comprehension. That does not mean we need it at all costs (to my typing sanity). Still, Oxford Commapologists persist with what I think are laughably paper-thin arguments. The most popular (and in some ways the most plausible), is the following:
First of all- I have tried to find the origins of this insidious image in order to assign credit/blame, and could only get back as far as this imgur post. I am certain the original artist has simply gone, wisely, into hiding.
As for the content, I have several better solutions to the problem than the lazy inclusion of the Oxford comma:
- Write the sentence as “…Stalin, JFK and the strippers.” This avoids the confusion caused by naming the strippers first, and frankly is a much more elegant way to write it.
- Don’t assume your audience is comprised of morons who need you to baby them with extra commas. I guess cultivating a smart audience is easier to say than do. The example that always frosts me is equally common “eggs, toast(,) and orange juice.” The only conceivable reason you need the comma to get your meaning across is that you have cultivated an audience of semi-literate idiots, and it’s all your fault.
- On that note, don’t write the sentence at all. I can’t imagine any piece of fiction or on-fiction where I would want to read that. Write something better; I know you can do it.
- Invite Churchill instead of the strippers; you never know when someone is ready to compile a dossier on your activities.
- While you’re at it, invite FDR instead of JFK. Now you are looking more historically literate (JFK had just joined the Senate at the time of Stalin’s death), and are ready to write your celebrated think piece on the Yalta Conference.
- That said, this example, as terrible as it is, is far better than the “panda eats shoots and leaves.” That example has nothing to do with the Oxford comma, so stop it.
Here is Ann’s post again, because WordPress gives us a pretty preview box when I link it this way:
A Quick Note On Owning Your Stuff
As far as I know, people like Little Things. Little Things relied too much on Facebook to drive their traffic (and revenue). Facebook’s algorithm changes cratered their traffic. Little Things shut down. I feel bad for the people who are losing their jobs, but I have never- going back to the early days of social media – advocated throwing all of your hope into a platform that you do not control.
I am hardly alone or first, but have mentioned this through the years in past posts. This will happen again, no doubt…
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