Oxford is the oldest English-speaking university in the world, so who wouldn't want to use its comma?
“Well, start waving and yelling, because it is the so-called Oxford comma (also known as the serial comma) and it is a lot more dangerous than its exclusive, ivory-tower moniker might suggest. There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and people who don’t…Here in case you don’t know what it is yet, is the perennial example, as espoused by Harold Ross: ‘The flag is red, white, and blue.’ So what do you think of it? (It’s the comma after ‘white’)” (Truss 84).
I never knew that there was an actual debate over this. I have spent my whole life going around believing there is only one way to punctuate the sentence above. And my belief was that the way that Harold Ross does it is correct. I remember in high school, classmates would feverishly cross out my last comma, as I stubbornly inserted an extra one in their sentences. And to think we were both right…it boggles my mind. It would seem just as there is no “big book of right answers” for literature, that there is none for grammar either. However, I’m going to keep putting in my Oxford comma…I like it better that way. I’ll leave everyone with this question: “Are you for it [the Oxford comma] or against it? Do you hover in between?” (Truss 84) However, if you are for it, I’m not going to promise I won’t sneak into your dorm room and add Oxford commas to all your papers…
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Kaitlin Monier on Oxford is the oldest English-speaking university in the world, so who wouldn't want to use its comma?: The same thing happened to me
Ally Hall on Oxford is the oldest English-speaking university in the world, so who wouldn't want to use its comma?: Haha Greta, your entry amused
Ally Hall on Oxford is the oldest English-speaking university in the world, so who wouldn't want to use its comma?: Haha Greta, your entry amused
Haha Greta, your entry amused me. I was always taught the Oxford comma as well, and frankly, I didn't know any other kind of comma existed. I thought when you had this, this, and this, a comma ALWAYS went before the 'and'. Well, like you, I am going to keep using the comma before the and.
Haha Greta, your entry amused me. I was always taught the Oxford comma as well, and frankly, I didn't know any other kind of comma existed. I thought when you had this, this, and this, a comma ALWAYS went before the 'and'. Well, like you, I am going to keep using the comma before the and.
The same thing happened to me in high school when peer reviewing papers. I always thought that the people who did not use the comma were wrong, I guess I was wrong. It is defiantly more logical to use the Oxford comma when listing and separating ideas because without that extra comma, the ideas seem to run together.
I had very a traumatic experience in Journalism in high school: I wasn't allowed to use the Oxford comma. *GASP* That went against every rule that I was ever taught about the comma. I would always catch myself writing an article and then accidently sticking a comma before the "and". My editor would get angry with me, thinking that I was not checking my style book for the correct punctuation. The fact of the matter was that my middle finger on my right hand would sneak down on the keyboard when I wasn't looking and type the Oxford comma. I couldn't help it! It was habit! Coincidently, I quit journalism my junior year of high school. Maybe things would have been different if they had used the Oxford comma.