The blue-blood punctuation mark, named after the Oxford University Press, acts as a social signifier, a sieve for the bookish and studious (and, perhaps, pretentious).
Contrary to what most students believe, the Oxford comma isn't grammatically correct. But that doesn't mean it's wrong to use it. Instead, it's grammatically optional.
Many opponents of the Oxford comma claim that it makes a piece of writing sound more pretentious and stuffy, and that it can make things seem cluttered and redundant. Many magazine publishers renounce its use as well, because sentences loaded with commas take up valuable page space.
Pros and cons of the Oxford comma
It resolves ambiguity in some cases. It creates ambiguity in some cases. All other list items are separated by commas, so it's more consistent to add a comma before the final one too. It takes up space on the page—mainly important in contexts like newspapers, where space is precious.
Clarity and precision
The biggest argument in favour of using the Oxford comma is for clarity. Sometimes, many people argue, the Oxford comma isn't just a stylistic feature, but an essential one, as the meaning of a sentence can be altered without it.
It is much more widespread in the United States, although American news organizations tend to leave the second comma out (that includes The New York Times, whose style guide advises that it should not be used unless a sentence is otherwise confusing without it).
Gertrude Stein had no use for the Oxford comma, or any kind of comma at all; in fact, she found the use of them “degrading.” In her Lectures in America, she said, “Commas are servile and they have no life of their own …
That said, the serial comma—despite its British name—is much more common in American writing than in Britain, Australia, South Africa, or Canada. Americans use the Oxford comma more often, while writers in other countries use it when omitting it would cause confusion.
The big shift in this thinking came in 1905, when a printer named Horace Hart updated his style guide for Oxford University Press, requiring his employees to use a comma before the last item in a series.
Defenders of the Oxford comma claim that, without seperating the final two items in a given list, the reader automatically combines the words. Opponents say that a grammatical rule cannot simply be disregarded whenever it seems to become ambiguous. If you favor the Oxford comma, it needs to be used every single time.
The Oxford comma did not actually originate at Oxford University in England. One can trace its origin in English guides from the early 20th century. The Oxford comma is "correct" in American Standard English but does not exist in other languages, nor is it mandatory in British or International English.
Brittney notes that Grammarly is pro-Oxford comma, in part because many long-timers (“the OG Grammarly users”) have voiced fondness for it. “It's really carried over into our blog, social media, emails,” even in settings where AP style might be more typical: “We've kept the Oxford comma just to keep things consistent.”
The blue-blood punctuation mark, named after the Oxford University Press, acts as a social signifier, a sieve for the bookish and studious (and, perhaps, pretentious). It suggests personality traits that extend far beyond punctuation preferences.
Most British style guides do not mandate its use. The Economist Style Guide notes that most British writers use it only where necessary to avoid ambiguity. A few British style guides mandate it, most notably The Oxford Style Manual (hence the name, "Oxford comma").
Commas. There's fierce debate between those who advocate using serial, or Oxford, commas (putting a comma before the final "and" in a series) and those who don't. The best practice for resumes is to use serial commas, as they can really make your career documents easier to understand.
Australian and American English both use the Oxford comma like this, but they differ on when it is used: Typically, in Australian English, we only use an Oxford comma when a list would be unclear without one, such as in the example sentence above.
Common Style Guide Rules for Oxford Comma Use
Style guides that encourage the use of the Oxford comma: Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, the MLA Style Manual, The Chicago Manual of Style, APA style, and the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual all adopt the Oxford comma in their house style.
Serial/Oxford Comma
Despite being named after a British University, the Oxford comma (the comma used before “and” in lists (e.g., I like wookies, ewoks, and droids)) is not considered standard in UK English because only one style guide (Oxford) recommends it.
AP style—based on The Associated Press Stylebook, the style guide that American news organizations generally adhere to—does not use the Oxford comma. The above sentence in AP style would look like this: Please bring me a pencil, eraser and notebook.
Examples of the Oxford Comma
Here are some examples of sentences that use the Oxford Comma: “My favorite authors are Stephen King, Charles Dickens, Suzanne Collins, and Ayn Rand.”
You might even be surprised to find that writers whose work you love didn't even use Oxford Commas; you just didn't notice it before. Some of the most acclaimed figures in American literature shun the Oxford Comma, such as Ernest Hemingway, Charles Bukowski and Cormac McCarthy.
A judge ruled in the drivers' favor last March, and it was all thanks to the lack of an Oxford comma in a Maine labor law. An Oxford comma is the comma used after the second-to-last item in a list of three or more things, “item A, item B, and item C.” It's not often used in journalism.
Omitting one cost a Maine dairy company $5 million. A Maine dairy company has settled a lawsuit over an overtime dispute that was the subject of a ruling that hinged on the use of the Oxford comma. An absent "Oxford comma" will cost a Maine dairy company $5 million.
In its own text, the guide by Cambridge omits serial commas; Oxford's retains them. So for British English, use serial commas or omit them, but do so consistently. And if you go without, make sure to add a comma wherever its absence might create ambiguity.