# Oxford Comma **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 29, 2013, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254 "2013-03-29T12:23:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/41 "2013-03-30T21:30:08Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > The classic example: > > “I’d like to thank my parents, Barney the dinosaur and Donald Trump” - **sounds** like I’m claiming those people as my parents; the Oxford comma is inserted before the last item and it becomes: Actually, it doesn’t _sound_ like anything at all, because we’re talking about something which only is _written_–punctuation (commas, or the lack thereof). When someone is talking, there is no concern about such a confusion, because there is a distinct way to pronounce the sentence if one wants to claim Barney the dinosaur and Donald Trump as one’s parents. In this example, the serial comma is necessary for disambiguation only in writing precisely because there is no sound–there’s no way to disambiguate with pronunciation. And in fact, in most instances of serials, the serial comma isn’t necessary, because it’s usually obvious from context that the final two items do not comprise an appositive. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/42 "2013-03-30T21:46:11Z")
> [@NAF1138](#): > > Yeah, I’ve seen those English drama’s too > [@Colibri](#): > > I don’t even want to tell you about some of the arguments I’ve had with editors about hyphenation. I though **drachmas** were an old Greek currency. Hmmm… ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/43 "2013-03-30T21:46:20Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Nor does that article give a short, readable substitute that real people can and will use. Strunk and White is far, far better than nothing and nothing is the alternative. I never used Strunk and White because I found something that provided the “rules” in a better way, but for the life of me I can’t recall what it was or who wrote it. It’s been years since I read Strunk and White, so while I can’t comment on it specifically in any real detail, I will say that a lot of the early “grammars” or style guides clearly were written by people with no sense of pedagogy, whose explanations could make sense only to those who already knew the “rules.” They’re like the high school English teacher who writes “awkward” in the margin of a paper, and nothing more. If the student knew it was “awkward” and how to make it not “awkward,” then s/he would have done so in the first place. It’s about as helpful as just writing, “Please try harder.” ---
**Author:** ![Robb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Robb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robb)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2013, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/44 "2013-03-30T23:07:21Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Advice that is ignored is worthless. Advice that people cannot find is worthless. Advice that is in too complex a form is worthless. > > Anything that people will use is priceless. I’m not going to give in so easily. The grammar rules in the book are usually wrong and rarely followed even in such a short book. Every time I see it cited as a useful source, I intend to point out it isn’t a good source. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/45 "2013-03-31T03:30:48Z")
I tend to agree with Exapno on this one. _The Elements of Style_ does not contain the best set of rules but they’re not terrible and they are presented well. It’s certainly not the final word on writing well but it serves as a good foundation. A writer should master Strunk and White before, ideally, moving beyond it. But if your goal is just to achieve a level of basic competence in your writing, _The Elements of Style_ will give you that. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/46 "2013-03-31T04:51:42Z")
Basic level of competency in my book includes understanding what passive voice is. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/47 "2013-03-31T06:50:04Z")
Even if they hadn’t used the term “passive voice” incorrectly, the knee-jerk assertion that it’s always better to use active voice demonstrated a real lack of understanding of English discourse in its various manifestations. It helped to perpetuate a rhetoric that is blindly limited to the sentence-level. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 10:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/48 "2013-03-31T10:23:20Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > A lack of comma ties two list items together. Sometimes that’s appropriate, but most of the time it won’t be. I am a stickler for the Oxford (or Serial) Comma. I believe I am in the minority. I am also a big fan of the Oxford Comma for the reason you describe (and also because I believe it acts as a natural “pause” in the flow of a list). My editor, however, is not a fan. And since he’s the one who decides what runs and what doesn’t, arguing with him about it isn’t going to acheive anything except annoying both of us. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/49 "2013-03-31T14:23:37Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#): > > Basic level of competency in my book includes understanding what passive voice is. > [@guizot](#): > > Even if they hadn’t used the term “passive voice” incorrectly, the knee-jerk assertion that it’s always better to use active voice demonstrated a real lack of understanding of English discourse in its various manifestations. It helped to perpetuate a rhetoric that is blindly limited to the sentence-level. A quote from Robb’s “complete failure” link: > [@](#): > > After this unpromising start [merely showing some bad examples], there is some fairly sensible style advice: The authors explicitly say they do not mean “that the writer should entirely discard the passive voice,” which is “frequently convenient and sometimes necessary.” They give good examples to show that the choice between active and passive may depend on the topic under discussion. How about actually reading and understanding what you’re talking about before denigrating it? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/50 "2013-03-31T15:02:45Z")
Yeah, I do. There’s not enough good material in the book to make it worth slogging through the crap. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/51 "2013-03-31T15:21:52Z")
I’m probably the only descriptivist here who actually has a fondness for Elements of Style, but maybe that’s because I found it particularly helpful in my own writing as a high schooler. Yes, later I learned a lot of stuff was incorrect or incomplete, or even ambiguous, but I felt it had a measurable effect on my writing. Now, I’m a photographer. You see similar things in photography instruction. Concepts like “the rule of thirds,” “avoid placing the subject in the center,” and advice like “fill the frame” or “eliminate extraneous visual information.” All, to me, are analogous to Elements of Style-type rules. And all are as correct or incorrect. “The rule of thirds” is one of the first “rules” you learn to break as you develop your style. “Avoid placing subject in the center” is as nutty or sensible as “don’t use the passive voice.” Of course there are many, many compositions in which placing the subject in the center is exactly the right (or “a right”) compositional choice. “Fill the frame/eliminate extraneous information” also is just as good and useful as “eliminate unnecessary words” (or whatever it is in S&W). And those photography basics worked equally as well for me when learning photography. They’re all little bits of bullshit in their own way, but they do work (IMHO) without bogging down a beginner in the details. And that’s kind of how I feel about S&W. I later outgrew it, but it made a measurable (and, IMHO, positive) impact on my writing. ---
**Author:** ![Robb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Robb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robb)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/52 "2013-03-31T16:13:52Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > A quote from Robb’s “complete failure” link: > > How about actually reading and understanding what you’re talking about before denigrating it? You understand that Prof. Pullum doesn’t think the book should be venerated? It is trivially easy to find grammar books that teach the actual grammar of English and to find easily understandable books on style. ---
**Author:** ![Robb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Robb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robb)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/53 "2013-03-31T17:02:10Z")
A [Room for Debate](http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/happy-birthday-strunk-and-white/) where everyone agrees that the Elements of Style isn’t helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/54 "2013-03-31T17:27:56Z")
Great idea. Let’s quote from that link: > [@](#): > > For generations of students, The Elements of Style has been the first and perhaps the only book they have read on English composition. It serves and has served as an inspiration to many people about how to simplify and improve their writing. The self-righteous bashing of the book by people who don’t write nearly as clearly as “Strunk and White” is a reminder that the critics are parasites on the work of others. Criticism succeeds only when the critic’s work is comparable to the literary (or artistic) work being criticized. Otherwise, it digresses into pedantry, as is the case here. > — Michael Parker > > While I agree with everything said above, I do still recommend the book. Mainly because most people have never been exposed to the concept of “style” (in any of its senses). They don’t think about how they write – with the inevitable consequence that their writing is unreadable. > > Strunk & White is short enough and blunt enough that readers get some useful principles to follow. With luck, they’ll at least pay some attention to how they write, which is bound to improve it. > — David Glover > > Enough with the Strunk & White bashing! Yes, some of the grammar rules are outdated. But let’s not lose sight of the big picture. This book taught me how to write, and I earn my living as a writer. I had the best education money could buy, but I didn’t really learn how to write until I absorbed the lessons of Strunk & White. I’m forever in their debt. > — Charlie > > Strunk and White may be too elementary or narrow for these professional writing pundits, but it’s valuable for this bureaucrat who reads too much bad writing and tries hard to improve his own. I recently reread Strunk and White over a weekend, did a rewrite of something on Monday, and was quite pleased with the result, not because I could congratulate myself for following someone’s rules but because it was nicer to read. > — Alan McDonald > > Considering that most high school students can’t even write a simple sentence anymore this is STILL a great book for “Style” and “Grammar.” > > After forcing students to read these books I can finally read their essays without a headache. The above authors are too picky. Overall, it’s a great little book. > — Helen from Hawaii > > Hey, hey! Back off people! The book helped me a lot. English is not my first language, and is hard enough language. We are not all linguistics as you all are. So, take it easy on the book; it can not defend itself. > — Nasser Ibrahim > > Let me defend Strunk and White. Nobody else did. I like their advice in part because it makes prose easier to understand, especially technical prose. A general principle behind much of their book is that the reader should be able to parse a sentence’s syntax before understanding its meaning. The syntax should help understanding. It should not be part of the puzzle. For example, number agreement provides a redundant cue about the meaning of a pronoun. (That is why “they” as third-person singular is a bad habit, although, I admit, Benjamin Franklin used it.) And putting “only” just before what it modifies removes potential ambiguity. > > Some of their rules cannot be explained this way and are probably just archaic. But many others criticized here are not so archaic as to be unenforced by, for example, The Economist, by technical journals (including the one I edit), or even (off and on) by the Times. > > Jonathan Baron > Editor, Judgment and Decision Making > — Jon Baron > > Whether THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE has value or not might be best cast as a cost-risk-benefit analysis. > Pullum’s CAMBRIDGE GRAMMAR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE lists for $161.42. The list price for Strunk’s ELEMENTS OF STYLE is $1.05, and the price on Amazon for the Strunk & White version of THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE is $4.00 > > The risk of a student failing to grasp a few of the rules in ELEMENTS is low. The risk of a student failing to wade through Quirk’s COMPREHENSIVE GRAMMAR is high. > > If someone who frequently writes can master ten or so pages of ELEMENTS–and in my experience, few actually do–then the benefits are great. Just think how much better our lives would be if marketing and advertising executives actually took the rules outlined in ELEMENTS to heart! > — RobW > > “The Elements of Style” has helped vast numbers of people learn to write clearly. > > When my eleventh grade English teacher used it as a tool in class, she began with the Introduction; we were taught from the start that it did not pretend to be complete, or final, or even always right. > > It is, however, an excellent beginning place for incipient writers. Thank you Strunk and White! > — E. Carpenter ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/55 "2013-03-31T17:33:56Z")
The Rules of Style of SD–aka Regulations, hence prescriptive–is not to copy large blocks of text, and if you feel you must, to put them in spoilers because it fucks up posting presentation. ETA: But I forgive you. ---
**Author:** ![Robb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Robb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robb)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/56 "2013-03-31T17:36:41Z")
Sorry, are those the comments? I’ll agree with you that the book is popular, but I don’t understand that popularity equals value. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/57 "2013-03-31T17:51:59Z")
> [@Robb](#): > > Sorry, are those the comments? > > I’ll agree with you that the book is popular, but I don’t understand that popularity equals value. Similarly, unpopularity among people who don’t get it does not equal lack of value. ---
**Author:** ![Robb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Robb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robb)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/58 "2013-03-31T19:33:39Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Similarly, unpopularity among people who don’t get it does not equal lack of value. I gave you a link where several professionals of the English language identify defects in the contents of the book. Do you know of any linguists who counter those allegations? Can you counter those allegations? Do you believe the grammar rules in the book are correct? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/59 "2013-03-31T21:44:56Z")
> [@Robb](#): > > I gave you a link where several professionals of the English language identify defects in the contents of the book. Do you know of any linguists who counter those allegations? Can you counter those allegations? > Do you believe the grammar rules in the book are correct? Since the audience uses the book for its style rules, which all the linguists concede are useful and not the kneejerk dogmatism of its critics, I don’t care about the grammar half. Look at those positive comments\*. They’re about having their writing improved. They aren’t about the nuances of grammar. As soon as you concentrate on the grammar half, you’ve lost the argument because you’re critiquing a flaw nobody cares about. It’s the Elements of Freaking STYLE, not the Elements of Grammar. \*And I quoted 9 out of 266 comments, all from the first page. You can turn to any other page and see the same overwhelmingly high ratio of praise. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254/60 "2013-03-31T23:23:17Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > It’s a [song](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Comma_%28song%29) by Vampire Weekend. Thanks Dewey! Added some VW to my Rdio [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oxford-comma/654254.md?page=4)