By: A.B. Timothy
Have you even heard of the Oxford comma? This piece of grammar goes by many names: the Harvard Comma, the Oxford Comma, or the Final Serial Comma. According to J.T. Bushnell, a senior instructor of English at Oregon State University, the hard rule in English is that every list of items must have a conjoining word between each item, called a conjunction. In papers and in scripts and in books, we need the conjunctions. Did you not like how many times I used “and” in that last sentence? Well, that is where the protagonist of today’s article comes into play. The comma acts as a placeholder for the conjunction until it is stated definitively between the final pair of items. This allows the list to conform to the rule, without overloading on conjunctions.
Originally, this meant that we did not need the final comma before the conjunction, which is why the Declaration of Independence reads “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Even Grammarly does not appreciate the fact that I am quoting the Declaration of Independence correctly. This all changed in 1905, when a printer named Horace Hart put out a style guide for Oxford University Press that required the comma before the conjunction. Because of the prestige of the university and the sway it held, this quickly became standard for academic writing across the country.
This look at the origins of the Oxford comma was inspired by a post I saw earlier today on X by user @NoahRayWrites. He posted a meme that ironically named the Oxford comma as superior and then proceeded to abandon use of the comma in the caption he wrote for the piece, causing me and several others to playfully make fun of his improper usage in the reply section. This all drove engagement, which I have to imagine was his goal; well, goal accomplished!
His joke was along the lines of how a lack of Oxfordian commas can lead to unintended interpretations of the sentence. For example, if I text you and ask, “Hey, what’s for lunch?” and you respond with, “Borritos, tacos and hot dogs.” I will assume you meant the three individually listed items. However, another, equally valid (at least grammatically speaking) interpretation is burritos that are made of tacos and hot dogs. The first item is the dish, and the following two items are descriptions of the dish.
Thank you to T.J. Bushnell for the information used in this article. Please visit the original article.
Make sure you use that last comma; it may seem like a small thing, but it can make a big difference.
What do you think?
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