The Oxford comma: to use or not to use?

Earlier this week, the omission of a controversial punctuation mark from a piece of statute led to judges awarding dairy employees in the US state of Maine potentially millions of dollars in backdated overtime pay.

The case has left a sour taste in the mouths of their employers, who have vowed to contest the ruling. It has also reignited debate among linguists as to the merits of the ‘Oxford comma’, also known as the ‘serial comma’ or ‘Harvard comma’. This is a comma placed after the penultimate item in a list of three or more items, before ‘and’ or ‘or’.

The Oxford comma is called such because it was traditionally used by publishers at the Oxford University Press. These days, you’re unlikely to see one in British English, but that’s not the case in America. Take this US film title, for instance: Sex, Lies, and Videotape. And compare with this UK film title: Rita, Sue and Bob Too.

For British writers, there are, however, occasions when using the curly curiosity is necessary to avoid ambiguity. Consider this sentence: I visited my sisters, Patricia and Pamela. Without the insertion of an Oxford comma, the reader is led to assume that Patricia and Pamela are the names of the writer’s sisters. But it turns out that what the writer meant was that they visited their sisters (names not given) as well as Patricia and Pamela. The Oxford comma is therefore necessary to resolve the ambiguity: I visited my sisters, Patricia, and Pamela.

At Realwords, we use an Oxford comma only when the sentence would otherwise cause ambiguity – unless, of course, we are writing for an American audience. And if you are reading this in the US, may we offer our greetings, salutations, and best wishes!