Oxford Comma ~ Yes or No?

[moderntimes]

You're correct, maddie. The actual purpose of the authentic Oxford comma is to prevent confusion in a sentence.

If this comes down to a very confusing sentence, of course, my recommendation is to simply rewrite the sentence to improve clarity.

[Scott]

The Oxford comma is NOT the comma before the "and" in a list of equal items, such as:

I bought red, yellow, and blue balloons. (incorrect)
I bought red, yellow and blue balloons. (correct)

But the actual Oxford comma is not the above first example. And in fact, the omission of the comma in that equal-item list is the CORRECT way per the actual Oxford guide

I don't think that is exactly what the term "Oxford Comma" means. See the last section in the attachment, which is page 121 of The Oxford Guide to Style by R. M. Ritter (2002).

The presence or lack of a comma before and or or ... has become the subject of much spirited debate. For a century it has been part of OUP style to retain or impose this last serial (or series) comma..., to the extent that the convention has come to be called the 'Oxford comma'. But it is commonly used by many other publishers here and abroad, and forms a routine part of style in US and Canadian English

[ALynnPowers]

I'm so glad you looked it up! I thought I was taking crazy pills!

All those grad school classes in linguistics and speech-language pathology did hammer a few things into my head!

[moderntimes]

Well, here is the direct quote on which I'm basing my opinion -- I copied this directly from the PDF of the guide which my publisher sent me. Understand that I'm not making up someone's other info -- this is straight from the guide, with the publication info also listed:

=====

University of Oxford Style Guide
Public Affairs Directorate
University of Oxford
Wellington Square
Oxford OX1 2JD

Pg 13:

Do not use a comma between multiple classifying adjectives: absolutes which either are or are not, such as ‘unique’, ‘English’, ‘black’ etc (although note that stylistically these can be modified).

It was an edible German mushroom. (ok)
The eighteenth-century sandstone tower is lit up at night. (ok)

Do not use a comma between classifying and qualitative adjectives.

It was a large German mushroom with hard black edges. (ok)
It was a large, squishy German mushroom with hard, frilly black edges. (ok)

Use a comma between items in a list.

I ate fish, bread, ice cream and spaghetti. (ok) <-- compare this with the example of food below
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. (ok)

Note that there is no comma between the penultimate item in a list and ‘and’/‘or’, unless required to prevent ambiguity – this is sometimes referred to as the ‘Oxford comma’. However, always insert a comma in this position if it would help prevent confusion.

He took French, Spanish, and Maths A-levels. (not ok)
I ate fish and chips, bread and jam, and ice cream. (ok) <-- compare this with the example of food above
We studied George III, William and Mary, and Henry VIII. (ok)
She left her money to her parents, Mother Theresa and the pope. (not ok)

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Note the "fish and chips" sentence in the last example compared with the "spaghetti" example in the next-to-last example. My arrows added to point out the two pertinent sentences.

I know that the book which Scott mentions is published by Oxford press, so there's apparently a conflict. My example CLEARLY omits the comma in a list of equal serial items but includes it for the paired example list. Understand, I actually prefer using a comma prior to the "and" in an equal-item list. I am simply pointing out the style guide listings.

[bluemel4]

Thank you @Scott for clarifying. This lines up with my research about the Oxford Comma as well.

[moderntimes]

So blue, how to you regard the quote which I just posted from the Oxford University Guide?

[bluemel4]

@moderntimes we already played this game. I am not falling for the bait.

[moderntimes]

Ha ha... it's not a game, my literary friend. I'm as confused as you are now, with Scott's quote from a book about English usage from the Oxford press, which clearly seems to contradict my own reference, also from Oxford press. I dunno... scratching my head.

No biggie anyway, just an example of our changing language. For years in the USA we used the comma prior to the "and" in lists of equal items and for which there is no real confusion:

I bought red, yellow, and blue balloons

because I was taught this in my English classes (grad 1964) and this was used in our stylebook for the newspaper for which I worked. However in UK books of that same era, the comma was definitely deleted:

I bought red, yellow and blue balloons.

And now this practice has emigrated to our US shores and embedded itself into the standard usage rules. And as I've said, I've had to retrain myself for my writing because my articles and such were edited to represent this comma's omission, plus my recent novel sales.

What in fact happened was this: upon receiving this style guide I quoted above from my publisher, I went through my novel with MS-Word "change" and searched for ", and", replaced it with " and" so therefore stupidly deleting all of them willy-nilly. Much to my chagrin, after starting to read the results, fat and happy, I found that I'd also deleted needed commas for such things as paired lists and regular compound sentences where the comma was absolutely necessary! Duh. Luckily, my nitpicking habits led me to have first saved the unaltered text, so I then actually READ each instance of the ", and" occurrences and only deleted the comma where it was verboten.

When my new novel was sent to me last week (my complimentary copies) I happily found that my final galley proof decisions were just fine. The novel is clean and readable. Whew.

I really don't think the inclusion or deletion of a comma makes a damn, unless it's either useless or useful for the rhythm and understanding of the sentence. I'd just found it interesting that my original concept of the "Oxford comma" was incorrect via the guide I've quoted, and now to learn that Scott's quoted contradicts this. What does anyone know, anyway? Just so we don't PO the editors, our publisher, and most important, our readers. (note the use of commas in the previous sentence, ha ha)

[bluemel4]

As I have stated before, all of my research and reference books back up Scott's explanation of the Oxford Comma.

[Scott]

Well, here is the direct quote on which I'm basing my opinion -- I copied this directly from the PDF of the guide which my publisher sent me. Understand that I'm not making up someone's other info -- this is straight from the guide, with the publication info also listed:

=====

University of Oxford Style Guide
Public Affairs Directorate
University of Oxford
Wellington Square
Oxford OX1 2JD

I'm pretty sure that isn't an official edition of the Oxford Guide to Style but is from a PDF handout for a specific teacher/director's class or something similar, especially considering the guide is presumably only a little over 13 pages. However, if not, do you have the ISBN so I can look it up on Google Books or something similar?

Incidentally, from the excerpt posted earlier, it says with emphasis added by me:

I ate fish, bread, ice cream and spaghetti. (ok) <-- compare this with the example of food below
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. (ok)

Note that there is no comma between the penultimate item in a list and ‘and’/‘or’, unless required to prevent ambiguity – this is sometimes referred to as the ‘Oxford comma’. However, always insert a comma in this position if it would help prevent confusion.

So the issue seems moot in the sense that, whether it's recommended or not by Oxford, it's called the Oxford Comma nonetheless.

[moderntimes]

No, Scott, it's the actual official guide from Oxford University "Michaelmas term 2014" edition. Here's the actual link from the actual university. It's not a one-off guide at all. This of course adds to the confusion, as your book is clearly also from the auspices of that same university.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/public-affairs/style-guide

[PashaRu]

If I read just a few more comments about what is or isn't the Oxford Comma I'm, going, to hurt, myself or, start to break, things.

And I, voted Yes,!,

[bookowlie]

If I read just a few more comments about what is or isn't the Oxford Comma I'm, going, to hurt, myself or, start to break, things.

And I, voted Yes,!,

Pasharu for President

[ALynnPowers]

If I read just a few more comments about what is or isn't the Oxford Comma I'm, going, to hurt, myself or, start to break, things.

And I, voted Yes,!,

What are you talking about? There's no such thing as an Oxford comma.

[PashaRu]

Perhaps it was rendered obsolete by the Ivy League Interrobang.