Style Guides, Uncommon Sense, and the Oxford Comma

Originally posted on Linkedin 08/01/2022

It’s not just writers who have to spend a good chunk of their day in front of a keyboard. Whether you’re an attorney, a business owner, or a webmaster, harnessing clarity in how you communicate with others should be one of the most important things you set out to do on a daily basis, other than, you know, making money. The longer you write, the better you get at it, one can only hope. Even something as simple as an email or a text message should be clear and concise, but we all know that in the wild this is hardly the case all the time.

As different niches mandate different standards, everyone tends to fall into certain writing habits—both good and bad—that they’re familiar with over time based on the style guides their respective industry forces them to use. Journalists and public relations spin doctors almost exclusively rely on AP Style. Attorneys must acquaint themselves with the standards of the Bluebook. College professors have a reputation for being sticklers when it comes to enforcing MLA and APA guidelines. Novelists are encouraged, but not obligated, to stay in line with the Chicago Manual of Style to minimize the chances of a manuscript rejection. Even the U.S. Government Publishing Office has its own stylebook that differs significantly from all the rest.

While style guides vary in how they expect their users to cite sources, abbreviate geographic regions, and capitalize proper nouns, they all pretty much follow proper English to the letter. Punctuation, however, is another story altogether.

Compared to how many other languages are written, English prefers to do things the hard way, and style guides even further this tendency to be unnecessarily complicated, full of exceptions, ifs, and but-nots. MLA forces its adherents to put citations within the text, but only after complete sentences and before the period of the same sentence, making for an eye-straining read; Chicago and Turabian use more practical footnotes instead. AP Style abbreviates Kansas but not Hawaii in datelines, even though both contain the same number of letters. The U.S. Government Publishing Office has two different ways to write the Fourth of July, depending on whether you’re referring to the calendar date or the holiday. Then there’s the Oxford comma. To this day, there’s still no consensus on whether its use is anachronistic or mandatory. Opinions are just like… well, we’ll say stylebooks. Everyone has them on their bookshelves and they’re all annoying.

The Oxford comma is the last comma in a series just before the and in a clause or sentence, usually to provide clarity. A common example that continues to float around on grammar-focused Internet forums involves historical figures and exotic dancers attending a bachelor party. In the following example below, the Oxford comma is present:

“In attendance at last night’s bachelor party were the strippers, Lincoln, and Stalin.”

For contrast, here’s the same example without it:

“In attendance at last night’s bachelor party were the strippers, Lincoln and Stalin.”

In the example sans Oxford comma, grammatically it is implied that Lincoln and Stalin are in fact the entertainment, rather than merely guests. While most people would be able to understand the meaning of the sentence without the extra comma, it’s not always prudent to assume everyone will automatically recognize the clarity that you see in your own head. The job of the Oxford comma, its proponents would argue, is to eliminate any ambiguity in a series, even when the intent of the meaning of words grouped together should be clear.

For reporters and press agents who rely on AP Style, this can cause potential problems, as AP omits the Oxford comma except in circumstances where it’s absolutely necessary. But rather than have a concrete set of rules, it is left up to a judgment call by the individual writing an article or press release.

Lawyers have it even worse. Although the Bluebook suggests Oxford commas be used except in conjunction with an ampersand (&), typographical oversights can be costly. For a dairy farm in Maine, the absence of a comma in a state law that exempted certain activities from overtime pay resulted in a $10 million lawsuit the farm ultimately lost, to the delight of its drivers and their attorneys. The full opinion of the First Circuit Court of Appeals case can be found here.

So what are you supposed to do when you own judgment contradicts the style guide you’re mandated to use? In the case of the Oxford comma, your own analysis might actually end up being the safer road to take. It’s unlikely that anyone will be bothered by (or even notice) that extra comma so long as you follow the rules of your style guide everywhere else. Worst-case scenario, some editor will remove it before whatever you write goes to publication. But when clarity matters, as it always does, you’ll be thanking yourself later for hitting that extra key.