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?

The only thing worse than not using Oxford commas would be using them sporadically.

That's just called using a comma!

Not near the end of a list it's not.

Yes, quite. Implies erratically; 'selectively' would have been a better word.

Well, it is if you're only doing it sporadically/selectively. We're talking about applying the rule of the Oxford comma as a style convention. Or at least, I thought we were! 😁

When you use it as described in the Oxford/ Hart guide, the point is consistency. You use the serial comma consistently so that the omission of the comma has clear significance. That's why the examples OP gives can't be described as wrong.

I don't think there's any such thing as informal UK guidance, to be honest. It is probably less usual to use the serial comma, Oxford style, than not. It is certainly acceptable to use it selectively. But that is not the same as guidance saying the usage should be avoided.

What it boils down to is, OP has one preference, her colleague has another, and neither is wrong. That's for them to negotiate.

I don’t think something can be ‘sporadic’ and ‘consistent’ - the former implies irregularity and randomness.
It’s ok to either use them consistently as the American usage prescribes, or else to use them specifically for clarity.

Hmm. Having thought some more (!) I think that I'm referring to something that is not an Oxford comma but which I don't know the name of.

It's this:
She added Oxford commas to the text, sporadically.

What is this kind of comma I wonder? I use them (sporadically ) but the kind of things i have to write tend to be more ... literary, evocative?

@Terracottateapot ,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.
You've got that wrong.

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'm not arguing with that.

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else define them as being invariably pointless.
I didn't at any point define them as " being invariably pointless".

"John, Paul, George, and Ringo" has an Oxford comma.
"John, Paul, George and Ringo" doesn't have an Oxford comma.

If the style guide says you should use an Oxford comma, I would use one.
If not, I wouldn't.

It's not needed for grammatical correctness.

That's a parenthetical comma (the bit that follows the comma is secondary info).

It's a comma but not an Oxford comma.

There is loads of informal guidance in the UK - apps, books, articles, even societies. Most, and some house style guides, do advocate selective use.

But it would also be correct, wouldn't it, to write "She added commas to the text sporadically".

So it would seem to be debatable whether "sporadically" is in fact (, in fact,) secondary info.

All very interesting.

Yes, I should have said 'selectively', not 'sporadically'. You can use it selectively in a consistent way - where there is ambiguity use it, where there isn't, don't.

Yes, that would still work. Adding the comma draws attention to the adverb ad might be construed as a wink 😜

I’m Scottish and I love an Oxford comma…when used correctly. The correctly I align with is when its use improves understanding or removes misunderstanding. I don’t like the American way (?) of using it in a list!

Okay, but I really don’t know how to interpret some of your other posts so.

When you quoted me above I was responding to this:
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.

You do seem to be differentiating between two commas in the same position in a sentence, saying one is a comma needed for clarity and the other is an Oxford comma.

Okay, I see what you mean. I thought you were talking about some monolithic informal guidance. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

A lot of these local style guides just don't mention it either way, which is fine.

Using it in a list is that Oxford way 😁

Longstanding Oxford guidance is, use serial comma in all lists - so Brahms, Beethoven, Gilbert, and Mozart - so that we know any omission is intentional - so Brahms, Beethoven, Gilbert and Sullivan.

Oxford guidance acknowledges that other conventions aren't incorrect.

Here since the link won't work is the actual Oxford style guidance - image 1 of 2, presumably will take a while to be approved

Image 2 of 2. From pages 77 and 78 of New Hart's Rules: The Oxford Style Guide: Oxford University Press, 2014.

It’s just a comma added for clarity when you’re not adhering to the Oxford comma style, I don’t think it has a name.

So their advice is to either use the Oxford comma every time, or not use it at all, or use it only when needed for clarification. I'm on the third option.

Yes, that's fair. I think some of us are reacting to the general tone of disgust re: consistent usage of Oxford commas (per a style guide). It's an equally valid (and very English) approach!

I don’t like the American way (?) of using it in a list!

Just to clarify, quite a bit of writing in the US avoids using the serial comma. The American way is generally to use the serial comma universally in more formal writing (legal, academic/scientific, etc.) according to the various style guides governing these types of writing. Newspapers, magazines, and other general interest types of publishing tend to follow style guides governing journalism, such as the Associated Press Stylebook, whose guidance is to avoid the serial comma unless needed for clarity.

I have an intense desire to hack MN and change the thread title to "Oxford comma, dilemma".

Disclaimer (colon) I know this isn't an Oxford comma. But I do sometimes agonise more over the punctuation of very informal or vernacular writing than I do over more formal registers, precisely because there are no rules .

(For eg, trembling over relationship between full stop and emoji, above).