Impractically Ornate

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On the Oxford Comma, Pedantry and Silliness

John P Bloch December 31, 2015

The thing about these Oxford comma memes is that they use an extremely narrow scenario to argue for always using it. The meme follows a patternĀ like this:

We invited my parents, Karl Marx and the Pope.

The problem is that this only works in lists of three, and only when the last two are people. For example:

We invited the Smiths, my parents, Karl Marx and the Pope.

In that sentence, the only way to misread that Marx and the Pope are my parents is by adding “and” between “the Smiths” and “my parents”. Or when using things that aren’t proper names:

I bought apples, grapes and cucumbers.

No sane person naturally would infer that the apples I bought are in fact grapes and cucumbers or that grapes and cucumbers are in some way grouped distinctly from apples.

All of this is to say, I suppose, that you should strive for the appropriate amount of clarity in your writing and the Oxford comma is only sometimes essential to that goal.

Posted in Errata
Tagged Just for Fun, Linguistics, Punctuation
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