You may be surprized to learn that there is a piece of punctuation that people get really up-in-arms about. It’s called the Oxford comma, or the serial comma, and there are a lot of people who are very passionate about using it. I used to be one of those people, but when I embarked on formal copy-editing training, I became a moderate on the issue.

Wait, I hear you say. Editing training made you more relaxed about a piece of punctuation? Oddly enough, yes. The unwavering passion people have for the Oxford comma is a very strange phenomenon, and I’ll unpack the whole thing here.

What Is the Oxford Comma?

I’m sure you’re all familiar with the idea that a comma can replace the word “and” in a list of three or more items. Instead of saying, “I like books and puzzles and coffee,” we say, “I like books, puzzles, and coffee.”

Wait! I hear the astute read call out again. If the commas in a series are meant to replace the word and, why did you also put a comma before and?

Ah-ha! You’ve spotted the Oxford comma.

The Oxford comma (or, more intuitively, the serial comma) is the comma that gets placed before the and in a list. Here are some more examples with the Oxford comma bolded:

• I had bacon, eggs, and toast for breakfast.
• On my way home, I stopped in at the library, picked out some books, ran into a friend, got distracted with interesting conversation, and only made it home after the game started.
• I went to the party with my two friends, a vampire, and a werewolf.

The reason we use the Oxford comma is to avoid ambiguity. In that last example, the sentence has a very different meaning if we omit the comma before and:

• I went to the party with my two friends, a vampire and a werewolf.

Do I have two supernatural friends or do I have two normal friends and two supernatural acquaintances? In every situation where there is ambiguity, the rule is to include the Oxford comma to clarify the meaning.

Where Is the Controversy?

Some people prefer to only use the Oxford comma when the sentence would otherwise be ambiguous. Other people prefer to use the Oxford comma in every list, regardless of whether the sentence is ambiguous without it.

The reason that there isn’t a hard and fast rule about how often to use the Oxford comma is because it’s a stylistic choice. In the copy-editing world, any rule that serves to support internal consistency rather than grammatical correctness is considered a stylistic choice rather than a firm rule. Some people spell it colour while other people spell it color. Neither is objectively wrong. Instead, your choice simply needs to be internally consistent (don’t spell it colour once and then color later in the same text).

The Oxford comma is a rule of convention rather than a rule of grammar. Still, a lot of people get very passionate about the “rightness” of one convention over the other, particularly people who favour the Oxford comma. Why?

The Case for the Oxford Comma

There is good reason to favour the continual use of the Oxford comma. It can be hard to catch every ambiguous sentence. If you use the Oxford comma continually, you don’t run the risk of making a mistake. The Chicago Manual of Style – the go-to style manual for American and Canadian book publishing – “strongly recommends this widely practiced usage . . . since it prevents ambiguity” (17^th ed., section 6.19). I too prefer the Oxford comma for this reason. In fact, those who staunchly advocate for the Oxford comma cite “avoiding ambiguity” as the reason it is objectively correct.

Keep in mind though that the Chicago Manual of Style still phrases it as a recommendation, not a rule. This recommendation also changes with different style guides. The Associated Press Stylebook – the go-to style manual for American news papers – recommends that you not use the Oxford comma.

The Case Against the Oxford Comma

Commas signal for the reader to pause. As such, comma-heavy texts tend to be slower paced. Omitting any unnecessary commas can increase reading speed (or at least, the perceived pace of the content). Also, including the Oxford comma when there’s no ambiguity is, frankly, unnecessary. There are a lot of people who view the continual use of the Oxford comma as adding unnecessary clutter.

Journalists live in a very fast-paced environment. They aim to produce content that is as quick and easy-to-read as possible. Also, while ambiguous lists do happen, they are fairly uncommon. It makes sense then that the style manual for journalism favours guaranteed pacing and avoiding clutter over the slight risk of ambiguity.

There are other contexts where the value of fast pacing outweighs the risk for ambiguity. For instance, if I were editing an intense action novel, I might recommend omitting the Oxford comma, even though I usually prefer it, to further support the author’s intended pacing.

Also, keep in mind that comma usage can be cultural. For instance, in Australia writers faithfully avoid any unnecessary commas because that stylistic preference is a part of their writing culture. If you can’t stand reading a book that omits the Oxford comma, you’re limiting the cultures that you can read from.

How Stylistic Preferences Are Cultural

Another reason people favour the Oxford comma is because it’s what they’re used to. If you’re used to one convention, it can be jarring to read a text that uses a different convention. For instance, conventions vary for punctuating quotes:

• “This is how you punctuate a quote in the U.S. and Canada.”
• ‘This is how you punctuate a quote in Britain’.
• «This is how you punctuate a quote in Spain. Yes, they use an entirely different symbol called a chevron or guillemet».

When I tried to read a Spanish novel for class in middle school, I found the quotes especially hard to read because I wasn’t familiar with chevrons. That didn’t make chevrons objectively wrong – they were just different than what I was used to.

Within a cross-cultural language like English, it is easy for people to assume that their culture’s convention is the best convention because they find it easier to read.

Think of the American who says, “it’s spelled color, not colour” or the Brit who says, “it’s not a bathroom, it’s a toilet or loo. There are no baths in public loos.” These kinds of arguments aren’t actually about having “the best” usage or punctuation; there’s no such thing as an objectively best convention. Instead, they’re about a sense of nationalistic superiority.

These arguments are incredibly annoying, to say the least, and it’s the kind of perspective that all good copy editors cast aside.

The best conventions to follow are those that your target audience is familiar with. I wouldn’t edit an English book to have chevrons when the target readers are used to quotation marks. I also wouldn’t edit a Spanish book to have quotation marks when the target readers are used to chevrons! Rules can be subjective. The best stylistic choice is often the one that the intended audience is most familiar with. Some audiences are more familiar with the style of omitting unnecessary commas, and that’s okay.

So What Should I Use?

At the end of the day, using or omitting the Oxford comma remains a stylistic choice. If you’re unsure, use the style that will serve your message the best.

If you’re writing to an audience that is used to omitting unnecessary commas, omit it. If you’re writing to an audience that is used to the Oxford comma, keep it. If you’re writing something particularly fast-paced, you may want to omit the Oxford comma for effect. If you’re writing any other piece, I’d recommend keeping the Oxford comma to guarantee that you avoid ambiguity. Welcome to subjective, complex world of copy editing.