In Defense of the Oxford Comma

I need to buy bread, milk, peanut butter and jelly and honey. That sentence might look incorrect to you, but within the parameters of the Associated Press style, it is correct. Perhaps this looks better; I need to buy bread, milk, peanut butter and jelly, and honey. The difference between those two sentences is the use of a serial comma. Serial commas, often referred to as Oxford commas or Harvard commas, are commas placed before the conjunction in a series. Their use has long been debated and different style guides have different rules. Regarding the most common writing styles, The Chicago Manual of Style, The MLA Style Manual, and APA style call for the consistent use of the serial comma, whereas The Associated Press Stylebook calls for only using it in cases of ambiguity.

Those in favor of the serial comma point to the ambiguity omitting it can cause (e.g. “Thank you to my parents, Aristotle and God.” This sentence lacks a serial comma causing it to indicate that the writer was the offspring of Aristotle and God). They also argue that the serial comma allows for every item in a series to stand alone with equal importance without creating any implied connection between the last two items. Naturally, we pause before conjunctions when speaking, therefore the addition of a comma before the conjunction is accurate to verbalization. I also think it’s important to note that most of us were taught to write in the MLA style, which does require serial commas.

Now, those who oppose the serial comma argue that any ambiguity caused by not using it can be fixed by simply adjusting the order of your series (e.g. “Thank you to my parents, Aristotle and God,” can be rearranged to, “Thank you to Aristotle, my parents and God.”) Serial comma naysayers would also site redundancy as a reason to eliminate the mark as the conjunction already serves to separate the last two items of the series. The final, most compelling argument against the serial comma, as far as the Associated Press is concerned, is that it takes up extra space when the meaning of a series was already clear. For newspapers, space is a precious resource and reducing waste is a constant battle between creative/editorial preferences and the limitations of printing.

In a court case settled during February of this year, not using the serial comma cost a dairy company in Maine $5 million dollars. The case began in 2014 when truck drivers sued Oakhurst Dairy for four years of overtime pay they hadn’t received. In Maine, every hour worked over 40 hours requires time-and-a-half pay, but there are exemptions for: “The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of: 1. Agricultural produce; 2. Meat and fish products; 3. Perishable foods.” If you were paying attention to the commas, you’ll notice the discrepancy that caused this lawsuit; “Packing for shipment or distribution” implies that the exemption is for two distinctions of packing, when in reality the intention was to say, “packing for shipment, or distribution”. This particular ambiguity cost Oakhurst Dairy $5 million when courts ruled in favor of the dairy drivers.

I personally love the serial comma. I am just generally a fan of commas, though, and overuse them more than I underuse them. Long live the serial comma.