Oxford comma dilemma

[HotCrossBunplease]

I have started working on a new project and have a colleague whose job it is to manage internal communications. She is lovely and very experienced.

I am the “figurehead” of the project in that all internal messaging says to contact me, and I am responsible for setting the overall tone and content, so I write a first draft and then pass to her for comments.

She has just come back with suggested amendments to our first big announcement and she has sprinkled Oxford commas all over the place. I can’t stand them. Two instances are new lists that she has added, based on wording that I had used in a different sentence structure. A third is a list that was in my original draft, to which she has just added the OC. As you can imagine, the third one rankles the most!

I really want to point out that my original was not wrong and that OCs are a matter of personal style. I could pull rank and make her remove them but that would make me an arsehole and set our working relationship off on the wrong foot. My sentence was this:

“Training will be provided in English, French and Portuguese.”

which has now become

“..English, French, and Portuguese”

The ones she has added are:

“Their enthusiasm, insights, and feedback have been invaluable”

and

“considering the broader impact of [project] on our clients, our practice, and the way we do business.”

I know that OCs are not wrong. I also know that not a single reader will care (apart from one friend of mine in the company who knows about my visceral objection to OCs and will find it hilarious).

Not sure what I even want from this post. A bit of solidarity maybe?

Ah, I see! Jolly good 😁

Thank you for that explanation.
I finally see what pp was saying 😅

I don’t agree with the thinking though.
The comma still has the name ‘Oxford comma’ because of where it’s positioned in the sentence.

Also I wasn’t shouting in my reply but limited ways to express emphasis 😂

I had to come back and post this after the “literally” derail earlier in the thread 🤣

Thank you all for the extended debate. I am #teamterracottateapot on the nomenclature.

I have decided that I am going to have the OCs removed from the text, citing personal preference and the fact that I went to Cambridge 😉.

Goodbye, farewell and goodnight.

Sleep well, sweet dreams, and don’t let the bedbugs bite ;)

Communication has gone out, sans Oxford commas. At one point I copied and pasted the OC-free list into an email and noticed that Copilot had engaged automatically and underlined it twice in blue. Lo and behold, when I clicked on the line I saw a “suggestion” that “adding a comma here could make the meaning clearer”. I smiled wryly and considered pasting this entire thread into Copilot. In the end I settled for a very firm “ignore”.

Colleague never explained why she had added them, even though I said “I’d prefer to remove, unless you feel strongly about them?” She just said “yeah sure”, and probably rolled her eyes!

Can we see the gite?

*Misses point

This side quest is precisely why I'd both rewrite the statement so that it contained the name of the duo - Simon & Garfunkel - as per their record label/official website (and the vast majority of their album covers for the last 62 years) and rearrange it so that they weren't the penultimate musicians on the list.

Simon & Garfunkel is correct. I wrote it as and for using it as an example.
I'd correct the ordering because, unless you have a good reason to do otherwise, a list should be in alphabetical order.

I’m laughing a lot at the way that Simon & Garfunkel have become part of the fabric of this thread because I have been a dedicated fan of Paul Simon since I was 15, and I saw him live only a couple of months ago. 83 and still sounding pretty great. Artie I can take or leave to be honest, but I like him as a grammatical tool.

I've seen comma butterflies in the garden this week.

Rewriting is fine up until you are transcribing or quoting someone else's spoken words.

Alternative examples include fish and chips, bangers and mash, and mince and dumplings.

In the case of "we invited the strippers, Marx and Engels", the image is of the authors of The Communist Manifesto wearing lingerie. The Oxford comma ensures clarity.

Pretty sure that every time I've transcribed something, it's been clear whether using an ampersand is appropriate, whether they've paused for breath enough for a hyphen to be used or if it's more of a Molly Bloom-style stream of consciousness.

When transcribing, it's clearly indicated and all grammatical errors, pauses, extraneous commas, mispronunciations and suchlike are clear - as then it's not my fault. But when it's as presented - somebody reporting a list of acts that a person likes - rewriting it to make it significantly less clunky is a pragmatic and totally appropriate decision.

As far as I can recall, my cousin didn't have LPs by bands with those names.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate In the case of "we invited the strippers, Marx and Engels", the image is of the authors of The Communist Manifesto wearing lingerie.

I read that as you invited the strippers and Marx and Engels. There was an image somewhere - in your mind possibly.

The Oxford comma ensures clarity. seems to refer to a different paragraph.

The Oxford comma certainly resolves ambiguity in this particular case. Many would have the image @selffellatingouroborosofhate refers to without it. Of course, our general knowledge guides us away from that image, but what to do with, "I've invited his parents, Jack and Emily"?

You can see why this convention is strongly associated with a university press, with the need for precision that implies. Our language is rich and almost everything can be rephrased if necessary, but the serial comma is a useful little item for those who aren't irritated by it.

There was an image somewhere - in your mind possibly.

How about if it had been "We invited the strippers, Suzy and Chloe"?

Understanding the content should not rely on the reader being familiar with the people mentioned.

Where Simon & Garfunkel are properly styled with an ampersand because that's the duo's name, there's no proper styling for the items on a pub menu. So the "if you wrote it properly, there'd be no confusion" argument that applies to S&G doesn't apply to a list of menu items.

If I ever open a pub I will sell Mushy Peas, Fish, 'n' Chips to annoy the detractors of the harmless serial comma.

Make it "Mushy Pea's, Fish, 'n' Chip's"

The pedants will post photos of it - free publicity.

I object to mushy peas far more than any grammatical error.

If you are the lead or "in-charge" then she is there to support you.
If it is your responsibility; don't duck out of it. Tell her what you want and ask her to ensure that your preference becomes the "Method".
If she get's the hump over it. sort it.