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?

A pragmatic writer changes it to 'My cousin likes Simon & Garfunkel, The Carpenters and Fleetwood Mac'.

The one with taste specifies that it's Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac

Can you quickly magic up a company style sheet that forbids the Oxford comma?

I'm not.
“I like to listen to David Bowie, Elton John, and Simon and Garfunkel” isn't an Oxford comma.
“I like to listen to David Bowie, Elton John, and Simon & Garfunkel” is an Oxford comma.
“I like to listen to David Bowie, Elton John and Simon and Garfunkel” is a mess and needs another comma.

Pragmatism doesn't come into it.

The original example was “Fleetwood Mac, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Carpenters”,
You said the comma before the last ‘and’ was not an Oxford comma @PleasantPedant.

I still don’t understand why you think it isn’t one.

@NeverDropYourMooncup
Recasting a sentence can certainly help make things clearer sometimes.

Your first example does contain an Oxford comma imho.

@Terracottateapot ,“Fleetwood Mac, Simon and Garfunkel and The Carpenters” lacks clarity.
Does it mean

• Fleetwood Mac
• Simon
• Garfunkel and The Carpenters

or

• Fleetwood Mac
• Simon and Garfunkel
• The Carpenters

The last comma in “Fleetwood Mac, Simon and Garfunkel, and The Carpenters” is a comma. You need it for clarity. The last comma in “Fleetwood Mac, Queen, and The Carpenters” is an Oxford comma. Removing it won't affect the meaning.

In the spirit of the day (25Oth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence), it is interesting to note that Thomas Jefferson included the serial comma in his original draft of the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." During the engrossing process, it was removed by an editor.

Interestingly, in a lot of the news coverage of today's events in celebration of the anniversary here in the US, I have seen the comma reinserted in the quotation.

That was yesterday.

Perhaps where you are it is yesterday. It's still today for me. 😊

That seems to indicate that your understanding of an Oxford comma is an unnecessary comma, and that a comma that is needed for clarity is, by definition, not an Oxford one.

The whole argument for using Oxford commas in British English is that they sometimes do aid the reader and give clarity to a sentence.

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else define them as being invariably pointless.

I agree - but this thread has been thought-provoking.

I actually think that they work best in persuasive or literary writing. They add rhythm and weight, and thus convey emotion as much as they provide clarity.

I know this is Pedants' Corner, but it is far simpler to reorder the sentence and use the ampersand as the duo themselves did, thus heading the majority of issues off at the pass.

Unless you have an entirely different interpretation of pragmatism you'd like to share?

I doubt AI added these because it wouldn’t have been able to resist changing everything, and this would have pissed off the OP even more.

I like Oxford commas (which these are). And I’m Scottish.

Perhaps you should adopt a style guide that you like, or draw one up. Much easier to enforce a policy than a personal preference.

This is brilliant! Thank you.

Yes I agree she is using them wrong. In your colleagues corrections they are not needed because the 'and' is there. YOu need to use them only to avoid ambiguity or if you are changing subject after the 'and'.

It's the opposite for me. Oxford commas seem clunky and disrupt flow. In their sole purpose of adding clarity when absolutely necessary, their ideal scarcity prevents inelegance. However, in my academic and technical writing, I was happy to use them a little more often. I would add, say, 5% wordage to emphasise clarity, and only then reduce 10% by removing repetition and redundancy. I agree with others the first thought should be to rearrange a list so no Oxford comma is needed.

She's not using them wrong. The point of the Oxford comma is that you use it consistently in publications, prose pieces, or company communications. You then use them every time you have a list, so that the significance is obvious when you don't have a comma before the final item.

Whether you commit to them to that extent is a style choice. Oxford style manuals for authors and editors working with the press recommend this usage. It's not about being right or wrong. OP just needs to agree a style choice with her colleague so that company communications are consistent. It looks as if that's the colleague's responsibility more than hers, from the job title. But if it really means that much to OP, she can ask.

Serial commas are probably more familiar to people working in science and technology, where any potential ambiguity must be ruled out.

Re style guides, they must have internal coherence. There's nothing worse than following one that's clearly the result of various people recording their personal bugbears, with no rhyme or reason. It starts to feel like some kind of judgemental etiquette sheet, rather than a neutral framework for clarity and consistency.

Here is the Oxford (Hart's) guide on the serial comma:

https://books.google.ie/books?id=btb1AwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&lpg=PP1&dq=oxford%20style%20guide%20serial%20comma&pg=PA77#v=onepage&q=oxford%20style%20guide%20serial%20comma&f=false

Your link doesn't work, but Oxford/Hart's Rules guidance is to use a serial comma. It's years since I worked on legal documents, but I suppose the serial comma is a standard convention in that context too (given the importance of avoiding ambiguity).

I'm not sure the point is consistency. Some style guides demand it, and should be followed wherever they rule. Other guides advise using it only when necessary for clarity. Informal UK advice is, in the absence of a ruling guide, the latter. It is quite acceptable to use it sporadically (as long as that's done consistently).

If this is done in Word, I reckon she’s just accepting the amendments that Word is recommending.

Word goes OC-tastic with a document.

It is quite acceptable to use it sporadically (as long as that's done consistently).

That's just called using a comma! and leaving the reader to guess whether you've done it deliberately or not.