I apologize for the intermittent posting the past month; what with the end of summer filling me with the spirit to jam in a bunch of relaxation and the end of summer filling me with a need to jam in a bunch of work that I didn’t do earlier, I’ve had precious little time to write about grammar. But admittedly, it was also that my interest in the intricacies of grammar were flagging a bit. I know that’s not something that many people would lament, this inability of grammar to raise one’s hackles. In fact, for many prescriptivists, this is something I wish they’d encounter. But for me, it was a bit worrisome — especially as I had recently been enjoying a resurgence of interest in syntactic research.
And then I was in a conversation with my mother in which she remarked on some people’s usage of a commas in a list. Specifically, she didn’t understand why anyone would add a comma after the penultimate item in a list, as in (1); she found it to be greatly preferable to omit it, as in (2).
(1) What sort of fool, imbecile, or moron does the author take me for?
(2) Surely I can read, follow and understand the point without the extra comma!
At that, my grammatical hackles rose! It was time to discuss the finer points of a negligible grammar point! Hooray! A long and boring conversation ensued about why my mother was biased against the comma (she blamed her strict schooling), why I was biased toward the comma (I blamed my raging Anglophilia in my formative years), and why she was bothered so by the presence or absence of such a minor mark (her schooling coupled with her natural proclivity to favor order in the universe). But the big question our conversation raised — and failed to answer — was this: why is this comma an issue at all? No one argues that the other commas in a list ought to get the heave-ho, but people are pretty evenly divided over the Oxford comma. So what’s its deal?
First, a bit of background. The Oxford comma is so called because it is standard in the style guide for the Oxford University Press, and has been for over a hundred years. The Oxford comma is attested in the 1905 edition of the OUP Style Guide, and remains there to this day. The comma also goes by a few other names. Those of a less Anglophilic bent can call it the Harvard comma — although as a loyal Princetonian I would never sully my reputation by doing so. Those who seek to remain neutral in such Anglo-American affairs can call it the serial comma. And those who don’t much care about minor punctuation issues refer to it as “that extra comma” or “that stupid extra comma”, depending on whether or not they use it.
But whatever you call the comma, is it right or wrong? There’re fair arguments on both sides. One might be concerned about limiting ambiguity. Alas, including the Oxford comma can lead to ambiguity, but omitting it can lead to ambiguity as well. Consider (3) and (4):
(3a) I own pictures of my friends, Hugh Grant, and Dolly Parton.
(3b) I own pictures of my friends, Hugh Grant and Dolly Parton.
(4a) I am writing to my Congresswoman, Alia Shawkat, and Michael Cera.
(4b) I am writing to my Congresswoman, Alia Shawkat and Michael Cera.
It is clear, thanks to the Oxford comma in (3a) that I am not friends with Hugh Grant or Dolly Parton. In (3b), though, they could potentially be my friends, listed as an appositive phrase, and the sentence is thus somewhat ambiguous. Deus ex Oxford comma! On the other hand, in (4a), if you don’t know who Alia Shawkat is, then you may reasonably conclude that the commas are intended to indicate an appositive and that Alia Shawkat is my Congresswoman. (4b) is clearer; since Alia Shawkat and Michael Cera can’t both be my Congresswoman, it’s clear that I was constructing a three-item list. Diabolus ex Oxford comma! In the first case, the Oxford comma dispels ambiguity, but in the second it induces ambiguity. So ambiguity doesn’t push us one way or the other.
Okay, so is the comma right or wrong? Well, it depends on who you’re trying to please. Wikipedia offers a nice list of which style guides say the comma ought to be used and which say it ought not to, and there’re some heavy hitters on both sides. Historical usage is also divided: An Exact Diary of the Late Expedition of His Illustrious Highness the Prince of Orange, (now King of Great Britain) from His Palace at the Hague, to His Arrival at White-Hall (1689) uses the comma, but The History of the Rebellions in England, Scotland and Ireland (1691) rebels against it. Others are more irresolute about the comma, occasionally using it, occasionally spurning it; Dud Dudley’s Mettallum Martis (orig. 1665, reprinted 1854) is one such example. This 17th-century indecision continues to the present day.
Once more you may ask, perhaps somewhat pleadingly this time, “So is the comma right or wrong?” Or perhaps you have already realized the truth: like so many other grammatical concerns, this one is a nothing, a trifle, a batrachomyomachy. It doesn’t matter which one you use, really. It never has. Follow your heart and let others follow theirs. Mine led me to the comma while my mother’s turned her from it, and yet we still can attend a garage sale without fisticuffs. At least until we both see something we want.
Summary: The Oxford or serial comma has been in use for centuries, but omitting it has always been fine as well. To this day the debate rages, but the fact of the matter is that both are common, and neither is without its flaws. Go with what you like, and feel free to switch around if you need or want to.
35 comments
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September 23, 2008 at 11:11 am
Matt
does your mom call it a garage sale or a ‘tag’ sale? meg swears by the latter, i by the former.
September 23, 2008 at 12:18 pm
mike
An alternative for 4a, assuming we mean Alia Shawkat to be in apposition, is to repeat the preposition:
I am writing to my Congresswoman, Alia Shawkat, and to Michael Cera.
I note this because it is unproductive to argue which meaning is intended, which people occasionally seem inclined to do. The fact that it _can_ be ambiguous, however clear the intent is to the author, is enough to evoke the editorial prescription to “rewrite.”
The larger issue is that punctuation helps to clarify meaning in a sentence, but it can’t always do it alone. When one is deciding how to punctuate, it’s helpful to try to give a sentence the most willful misreading possible, and then to punctuate, and to possibly rewrite, defensively against that.
In this case, as you note, meta-knowledge of who Alia Shawkat is can help to clarify the sentence*, but a willful misreading is to assume that the reader doesn’t, and to restructure accordingly.
PS The general rule in the US, I believe, is that journalists are trained not to use serial commas (AP stylebook), whereas most everyone else does. I believe.
PPS Not entirely related, but a story about an expensive comma error indeed: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060806.wr-rogers07/BNStory/Business/home
* COIK: “clear only if known”
September 23, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Gabe
matt: Garage sale. Meg is horribly mistaken.
mike: I definitely agree that the intended meaning of an ambiguous sentence is usually beside the point; as long as the ambiguity is fairly obvious and not semantically unreasonable, it’s probably worth re-writing. I know a lot of my papers suffer from flaws like those, where I’ve only realized upon re-reading them — after I forgot all the background knowledge I had while writing them — that some important sentences were open to obvious misinterpretations. And that’s an interesting sociological dichotomy, if journalists and regular folk see the comma differently.
September 24, 2008 at 3:28 pm
National Punctuation Day « Motivated Grammar
[…] punctuation is a matter of taste, especially on the tough questions. We saw that with the Oxford comma, and it’s true in most cases. Punctuation, as Dennis Baron noted above, serves two […]
September 25, 2008 at 7:37 pm
John
Now that Punctuation Man (‽) has endorsed the serial comma, we’ll all have to use it.
http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/serialcomma.html
September 26, 2008 at 7:00 am
NotJohn
You have reversed 3 and 4.
September 26, 2008 at 11:46 am
NotJohn
You are welcome. Now, in that same paragraph, perhaps you would clear up the ambiguity on which is the first case, and which is the second.
September 29, 2008 at 3:39 pm
The Ridger
Omitting Needless Words that aren’t actually needless causes far more ambiguity than commas, present or absent.
September 30, 2008 at 11:26 am
Felix
Omitting the serial comma causes more cases of ambiguities than leaving it in. The serial comma is called for especially when the items in a list are too long that the sentence would be hard to follow without the serial comma. You’re already the laziest if you can’t even use it; putting it in is the easiest thing in the world!
September 30, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Gabe
John: That’s what turned me onto it! Hooray for fictional superheroes!
NotJohn: Thanks for pointing out the error and the ambiguity. Hopefully the post is clearer now.
Ridger: I completely agree with you; the issue of the Oxford comma matters so rarely that it’s barely worth discussing and certainly not worth fighting over.
Felix: I don’t think anyone’s ever shown whether omitting or including the Oxford comma leads to more ambiguity. And omitting the serial comma, for many people, isn’t a matter of laziness but rather one of belief in its impropriety. The AP stylebook, for instance, requires journalists to omit the comma. I doubt anyone’s writing a list and says, “nah, I’ll save the little movement by omitting the comma.”
October 17, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Karen
To know me is to love me. I may favor order in the universe to the extreme but in my house chaos reigns. xo
September 21, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Gillian
Oh, I’m so glad I have discovered the Oxford comma!
I was taught the ‘no comma’ rule, and I’ve often fretted against it. Over the years, I have drifted towards including it anyway, damn it!
Now, my rebellion is bolstered by no less a body than Oxford Univ.
And all because I heard Vampire Weekend on the radio, and the host gave an explanation of ‘Oxford Comma’ – the name of their song.
It reminds me of when ‘Not Waving But Drowning’ was a band as well as a poem. Now it’s mostly a poem again. Ah, popular culture – so useful, so brief.
January 5, 2010 at 2:40 am
Stutz
Unlike your mother, I’ve always preferred the Oxford comma BECAUSE it seems more logical to me. For the sake of continuity, the comma belongs between all listed items, conjunction notwithstanding. The clincher for me is that when a list is spoken, there is a noticeable pause before the last item, and the comma represents that. No matter how clear the context, when I read a list without an Oxford comma, I instinctively feel compelled to run the last two items together instead of giving them their proper separation:
“Planes, Trains and Automobiles” sounds to me in my head like I’m pointing out airplanes to a group of trains and cars (think, “notice the Planes, ladies and gentlemen!”), but “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles” reads clearly like a list to me, with a brief pause after planes and after trains, as there should be.
February 8, 2010 at 4:46 am
Tom S. Fox
Why does everything have to be black and white with you? Why don’t you just choose whatever is less ambiguous in any given situation?
February 8, 2010 at 9:41 am
Gabe
Tom: I’m not sure if your “you” refers to me, but if it does, we are in agreement. Note the last line of the post: “Go with what you like, and feel free to switch around if you need or want to.”
March 3, 2010 at 11:56 am
Gin and Commas « Rabbit Hearts
[…] don’t know who he is or what he looks like, but I am fairly sure I love him. His post on the Oxford Comma makes me willing to rethink my stance on having babies, just because I at least know that they […]
June 30, 2011 at 3:58 pm
The Oxford, Harvard, or Serial Comma « Sentence first
[…] advocate the mandatory use of a serial comma; some don’t. Wikipedia has a helpful summary. Gabe Doyle, ever the level head, calls the whole business a batrachomyomachy – literally a battle between […]
August 1, 2012 at 9:29 pm
David
As I mentioned in an entry on the About page, I state that “I, too, love the fact that knowledge of correct grammar makes intentional misuse for effect that much more pleasing…”, as exampled by some of the nice omitted “to be” entries. (Now we know what the Bard meant by “To be or not to be? That is the question.”)
That said, I have reflected a bit more about (I assume) Gabe’s opening for this Serial Comma thing, and I have found myself at the other end of the spectrum as well: Gabe’s examples (3a and 3b, and 4a and 4b) do a beautiful job of providing cases where it should be used and where it should not. So, in the same sense that intentional grammatical misuse for effect can be pleasing, so, too, can not having to abide by a single “rule” when it cannot suffice. In this case neither always using it nor never using it is sufficient, so the correct answer should be to use it when it must be used and, otherwise, for brevity, to not use it. This should provide the most accurate meaning in any given case, if that is the goal, which it usually is, unless, as said before, we are playing with the meaning for fun…
August 16, 2012 at 10:37 am
Gabe
David: You make a good point. My only minor disagreement is that I don’t think the comma has to be omitted for brevity by default, because what’s a single comma?
August 16, 2012 at 11:10 am
David
If it’s not needed, it’s not needed. If it is, it is. Sure, anyone can just do anything, but, you have definitely convinced me that having a reason for so doing is an important part of effective communication. To me, normally, a comma between two items in a list makes sense, but a comma between an item in a list and a conjunction just seems wrong, unless, of course it’s right! (When I looked up “and” and “or” in the AHD, they showed an example of “and” between verbs, and they used the comma :-/ )
Your question “what’s a single comma?” causes me to consider text messaging, and the analogous blog somewhere about what would be considered right or wrong in that context. Scary thought…
January 14, 2013 at 11:19 pm
dainichi
Maybe this hasn’t been covered because it’s obvious or off topic, but in (3b) I would understand it as Hugh Grant and Dolly Parton being your only two friends because the comma makes the apposition non-restrictive.
Of course, this doesn’t change the ambiguity, but under normal circumstances would tilt the default parsing towards a list.
September 11, 2013 at 6:37 pm
Jon Tocker
I use whatever commas convey the information most clearly. Normally I omit the “Oxford Comma” in such basic lists like “I want bread, margarine and jam” but would include it as in 3a above to denote that Hugh Grant and Dolly Parton wouldn’t know me from a bar of soap.
March 4, 2014 at 5:19 pm
Fenn
Why would Anglophilia draw you toward the Oxford comma? The Oxford comma is in majority use in American English and is in minority in British English.
January 2, 2015 at 6:07 am
Al_de_Baran
“Prescriptivism Must Die”. It’s always a pleasure to see the mask come off, and to be reminded just how shallow the veneer of rationality rabid, ideologically driven descriptivists really is. Thanks, Gabe.
January 2, 2015 at 6:08 am
Al_de_Baran
*of rabid, etc.
February 18, 2015 at 5:04 am
Todd McCagg
I am NOT a grammarian by any stretch, but I try to watch myself for blatant misteaks (Ha!), spelling included. I just saw this post on a group I follow that BEGS for an additional comma!: “I was around 1 year old when heavy metal, Woodstock and man landed on the moon.”
October 10, 2015 at 4:13 am
Roger
The serial comma appears to me to be lazy. Rather than expecting that we read/write with technical accuracy, the use of serial commas employs a mere “feels good” function rather than any technical purpose when used inappropriately. I don’t know of any other punctuation that is thrown in simply for good measure, but I’m open to discussion.
January 23, 2017 at 8:42 am
Zero Energy Universe
Gabe: It is for this reason – with regards to example 4a – that I tend to avoid using commas for appositives in the middle of sentences, and instead use dashes (as I did above), or brackets (as I did just before, and am doing now). I also tend to avoid using commas when they are used for other reasons – such as separating clauses – in the same sentence.
With regards to your reply to mike (your first post in the comment thread), this is also why I prefer to write my papers well ahead of their due date, and to revise them several days after I had written them. This allows me to read it with a clear mind, and to more easily notice my ambiguities and even straight-up errors.
January 23, 2017 at 8:49 am
Zero Energy Universe
On another note, I much prefer the Oxford comma, mainly due to its utility in academic writing. It is quite common to find complicated lists, either with two item groupings (in which two things are listed together as a single item on a list), or with extended items (in which nearly entire sentences might appear as items on a list). Without the Oxford comma it would be difficult in many cases to know where the second-to-last item ends, and the last item begins.
Since I also prefer to be consistent in my style (well, it isn’t just a matter of preference, it is required by the editors and professors at my university), I then simply use it throughout – regardless of whether I am dealing with a complex list, or a simple list.
May 21, 2018 at 9:14 am
Rich Milroy
I enjoy the original debate.
I am interested in a second debate.
When and why did the Oxford comma start being called the Harvard comma?
May 25, 2018 at 1:30 am
Rachel Tedder
When you say, “Deus ex Oxford comma,” don’t you mean, “Oxford comma ex machina”?
Couldn’t resist adding my tiny bit of pedantry to this post. :)
June 1, 2018 at 8:50 am
Elliot
Oxford it is…all the way. Call it habit, however, from an early age I was taught usage of the Oxford and the habit has carried through to completion of my graduate studies in Nursing. Not a paper was submitted without the Oxford nor a subtraction made for it placement. One professor commented on my relentless use on every submission.
September 16, 2018 at 3:03 am
Fran
As an Australian, I was taught to not use the comma when the ‘and’ ended a list. Editing the school magazine as a teacher there were times when I added a comma because I felt it needed to be there, and had some ‘interesting’ discussions with the Principal (and co-editor) which I usually won. Turning to beta reading in my retirement made me notice the use of the serial comma much more, but I actually had no idea it had a name until I asked Mr Google about it. I continue not to use it at the end of a list unless it makes sense to, and agree with the premise that you should be able to decide as you go along. Neither one of the options is totally wrong so should not be used because it’s the rule.
December 29, 2018 at 7:36 pm
David Townsend
June 7, 2019 at 3:04 pm
Singular “they” and the many reasons why it’s correct – A2Z Facts
[…] Inconceivable! Note that (5) wouldn’t be ambiguous with a singular they. Like the Oxford comma, sometimes singular they introduces an ambiguity, but just as often it avoids an ambiguity. […]