Did You Want an Oxford Comma with That?

Image by Gerd Altmann on Pixabay

Any time I’ve interviewed for a new job or been in the process of taking on a new client, assuming they’re an English language employer or client, I’ve always asked them one question: Oxford comma, or no?

If I’d had a salary increase with every time I’ve had to switch between using it and not using it in my writing, I’d be a much wealthier man than I am now. I always use them in my own writing, but I’ve gotten quite used to not using them for employers and clients that don’t. And while in the past I used to bemoan those who eschew the Oxford comma, I’ve gotten to the point where I no longer care.

I just care if it’s consistent or not.

For those who might not know (particularly those readers whose first language isn’t English), the Oxford comma (also known as the “serial comma” or at times the “Harvard comma”) is a comma placed immediately after the second-last term and before the coordinating conjunction (and or or) in a series of three or more terms. For example, in the sentence “Would you like coffee, tea, or juice?” the comma after “tea” is the Oxford comma and can be omitted, or not, depending on the style guide you’re using.

The Oxford comma is, as far as I can tell, a peculiarity exclusive to the English language. In German, for example, it’s considered a mistake to put a comma before the word “und”. None of the Romance languages use the serial comma, nor do any other European languages that I know of. According to one source I found, the serial comma is optional in Vietnamese, which uses the Roman alphabet, while those Asian languages that imported European-style punctuation into their writing systems, like Chinese and Japanese, don’t use it.

Within the Anglosphere, its frequency of use varies geographically. Despite it being commonly called the “Oxford” comma, it is actually more common in American English than in British English, although the Oxford Style Manual does advocate its use, as does the APA, the Chicago Manual of Style, and the US Government Printing Office. By contrast, the Associated Press and New York Times stylebooks come out against it, as does the Canadian Press stylebook, leading many organizations in Canada to eschew its use.

Commas and Ambiguity

Those who make impassioned cases for the Oxford comma generally do make the point that its use reduces ambiguity in sentences. Consider the following sentence, offered by Wikipedia, which was allegedly taken from a newspaper account of a documentary film on the late country musician Merle Haggard:

Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall.

Of course, this sentence could be rewritten in a way that eliminates the ambiguity but doesn’t require an Oxford comma. One could write, for example, “Among those interviewed were Kris Kristofferson, Robert Duvall and his two ex-wives,” but this requires a whole lot more editing than simply adding a comma after Kris Kristofferson’s name.

Likewise, the following sentence is both ambiguous and just feels wrong:

The meal options were a club sandwich, fish and chips and curry.

Do the chips go with the fish or the curry? Of course, one could likewise rearrange this sentence to remove the ambiguity, but once again that seems like more work than simply adding an extra comma.

This might seem trivial, but non-use of the Oxford comma has been a factor in at least one court case of note. In a 2017 case in Maine, a court was called to interpret a statute that stated that “canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution“ of certain goods were activities exempted from the general requirement of overtime pay. Is “distribution” an activity exempt from overtime pay or is it “packing for distribution”? In the end, the court ruled in favour of the truck drivers who were demanding overtime pay for “distribution”.

Following this case, the law in question was rewritten with semicolons and changing the word “distribution” to “distributing”, now stating that “canning; processing; preserving; freezing; drying; marketing; storing; packing for shipment; or distributing” are exempt from overtime pay. Curiously, the serial semicolon, as seen after the word “shipment”, is non-optional across the English language and in all style guides.

Just Chill Out About It!

When I talk with fellow word nerds, I frequently come across strong opinions about the Oxford comma. In fact, I used to be one of those people with an impassioned opinion on the subject. At this point I no longer care, as long as its use is consistent across an organization’s written material.

I’m not sure when I myself started using the Oxford comma. I know my alma mater, the University of British Columbia, recommends using it, which is probably where it got hammered into me. I still, on a gut level, feel like sentences that don’t use it look wrong, but I’ve learned to let it go. After all, I live in Alberta now, and the Government of Alberta follows CP style in not using it. And anywhere where character count is at a premium, like Twitter, using it doesn’t make any sense.

What does drive me crazy, though, is when documents are wildly inconsistent in their use or non-use of Oxford commas. In my current role at Covenant Health (which follows CP style), I’m consistently finding myself plucking rogue commas out of documents that shouldn’t have Oxford commas. Granted, there are a few style guides that advocate its occasional use in cases of potential ambiguity, but this type of inconsistency strikes me as even more wrong than its total non-use. And in most cases I’ve seen, inconsistent use is due to sloppiness rather than to deliberate intent.

I myself like the Oxford comma. Not only does it reduce ambiguity, but it also more closely resembles our spoken language, as we generally pause in a list before the “and” or “or” for just as long as we do for the items that precede it. In speech writing in particular, it makes a lot of sense to use it. That said, I refuse to go to war over it and I’ll happily use whatever guideline my clients adhere to. At the end of the day, it’s just a comma.

A Note on Style Guides

If you’re a company or organization that puts out a lot of written content and you don’t already have an internal style guide, you definitely want one. Style guides are not only useful for creating guidelines around pesky language details like the Oxford comma but are also invaluable for establishing a consistent brand voice and tone for your organization, and it’s a given that you want this.

In my nearly two decades of life as a professional writer, I’ve not only been up close and personal with numerous style guides, but I’ve written a couple from scratch and contributed to others. If your organization is interested in codifying its writing conventions into an actual style guide, I can readily help you with this. Contact me today and let me help you do this.