Oxford commas

As the Economist discusses this week, proper use of the comma is a contentious subject.  The magazine (or "newspaper," as it prefers to call itself) notes that American writers use commas more liberally than do British writers.

Well, we're a wealthier country, I guess.  We can afford to squander commas.

The Economist claims that commas were originally used not for grammatical purposes, but as indications of places where the oral reader could pause to take a breath.  Therefore, their use should be considered stylistic and optional.

Well, maybe.  Without conceding the "pause for breath" hypothesis, I agree that their use in a given context is often optional, not bound by fast, never-to-be broken rules.

The exception is the "Oxford comma" -- sometimes called the "serial comma" -- that comma following the penultimate item of a series.  For example, "He enjoyed doing w, x, y, and z."  That comma after y.  Got it? 

I maintain that the Oxford comma is mandatory -- even though I have a hunch that my elementary school teachers discouraged its use.  In fact, if you find it omitted in any of my blog posts, it was omitted in violation of my own (unwritten) style sheet, and probably because of lazy comma habits instilled in me by those same elementary school teachers.

The Economist begins its article with an anecdote about the proper construction of a Maine labor statute that excluded a series of activities from a requirement that the company offer overtime pay.  The statute was completely ambiguous if one assumed that the drafter of the statute had considered insertion of an Oxford comma to be unnecessary.  The company argued that the court should find that an absent Oxford comma was implied; the court disagreed and applied the statute exactly as written -- with the two items following the final comma joined together as one item.

Despite this evidence of possible ambiguity when the Oxford comma is omitted, the Economist brazenly refuses to consider its use mandatory.  It urges instead that copy editors should read copy carefully, and take steps to eliminate ambiguity when it actually exists.

Not all of us have editors, least of all British editors with the infinite time and exquisite patience to test the ambiguity or lack thereof in sentences containing series.  And there's no downside to tossing in one more comma. We therefore insist in imposing an absolute rule on ourselves.

The Oxford comma is mandatory.