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?

Well, either you raise it with her directly or you put up with the commas 🤷‍♀️

I’d say it to her personally.
There’s a good chance adding the commas wasn’t a deliberate choice on her part at all.
If that’s the case she’s unlikely to be offended.

They are not referenced in our style guide.
They should be.

I'd add a request to the OC-inserter:

Olivia, please do not add Oxford commas to the text. They aren't used in the UK unless needed for clarity. Readers find them jarring and it makes the text look AI-generated, which would reflect negatively on AcmeCo.
HotCrossBun.

If she didn’t add them deliberately that IS something that would be worth escalating to her boss…

I think I was fairly clear in my OP @Terracottateapot that I realised I would have to put up with them, no need for the shrug emoji.

I do quite like this actually, except that I will probably sound patronising telling a UK comms professional what is and is not used in the UK.

Maybe change her job title to Head of Commas.

You are right (if this is UK). The Oxford comma looks clunky, even where it adds clarity (and should be used in such instances). This is not black-and-white; sometimes it helps, usually it's unnecessary. I would be doing what I could to revert the text without those Oxford commas.

Okay.
This is all just a bit pointless so though.

I don’t think someone using a spelling and grammar check is something worth escalating to her boss.

I literally said in my OP that I wasn’t sure what I wanted from the thread.

A comms person making changes without knowing they are making them is a risk.

Not using grammar check if they then review and think about the output.

Or change mine! 😀

I hate the word literally. It should only be used when needed for clarity.

What my A-level English teacher said many years ago was something along the lines of this:

"I can speak Spanish and Portuguese" would need no comma between the two countries. If you add more to the list, you still don't need one between the last two, but the ones you add do need a comma:

"I can speak German, French, Spanish and Portuguese".

On the other hand, if you need to qualify the last one, you are using a comma to define another clause in the sentence, not merely compiling a list.

"I can speak German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese at a push".

Because you don’t put a comma between the penultimate item and the last item in a list. An oxford comma can be used between clauses that are linked with a conjunction eg The lady smiled, and waved to her friend.

Agree with this. The Oxford comma in this example separates the two activities.

'The lady smiled and waved to her friend' does not mean the same as
'The lady smiled, and waved to her friend'.
One signifies that she is both smiling and waving at her friend, the other could mean that she was smiling about something else entirely whilst waving to her friend.

This is Eats Shoots and Leaves all over again, isn't it?😂

You’re getting a bit childish now.

There is no consensus as to whether including a comma before the “and” that precedes the last item in a list is “right” or “wrong”. Your teacher taught her preference, which happens to be the same as mine. However, it is a matter of preference, not binary right or wrong, which is what makes it difficult to tell someone else not to do it.

You won’t know if that’s what she’s doing (making changes without knowing she’s making them) unless you speak to her.
Maybe she has reviewed and thought about it and just loves Oxford commas?

I’d be very wary of reporting someone based only on your own conjecture, though I do realise your post about escalating this was probably just a throwaway comment on your part originally.

I'm not. If I literally threw him out, does it mean 'I demanded he left', I told him just now to leave, or did I pick him up and hurl him outside?

The abuse of the word means that people seem to think it's ok to say 'I was literally petrified.' or 'I literally died of embarrassment.'.

The OC is prevalent in AI so I avoid them

I know and agree with this. But I used it correctly!

When I read anything with superfluous commas I presume it's been written by Copilot.

That's not what an Oxford (serial) comma is. It refers to the comma placed before the final "and" or "or" in a simple list.

Although it's generally more of a US punctuation convention nowadays, it has a long tradition in the UK too and is often standard in legal/academic publications.

For example, Lancet journals specify in their author guidelines: "We use a comma before the final 'and' or 'or' in a list of items." The serial comma avoids ambiguity, which is crucial in clinical contexts where misinterpretation can have consequences.

I'm afraid it slipped into 'unnecessary word that makes the speaker sound thick' a few years ago.

I much prefer the OC versions 🤷‍♀️

I don’t think that’s true!
Not if it’s used correctly.

Gosh, am totally with you on this, OP.

I would write the following.

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

I recoiled instantly at

“..English, French, and Portuguese”

I really don't like to see superfluous punctuation cluttering up sentences.

It is a vexed situation, though.

I'm a Modern Languages part-time post-grad with a first degree in German and French. I think that having spent a lot of time writing in German in my life may have influenced my view of and use of punctuation, if I'm honest.

I also did some sub-editing when I was with the FT group many years ago.

Could it be that the people sprinkling in the extra commas are younger and not from academic backgrounds such as English or Modern Languages, disciplines in which 'correct' punctuation was considered de rigueur?

I'm very aware, as I write, that both English and German have changed a lot in my lifetime.