July 1st, 2011
Who really cares about the Oxford Comma?
The much aligned punctuation mark may have had it’s day in the sun as the namesake University has discouraged usage in it’s latest official Style Guide.
Whilst not whole heartedly dismissing the comma preceding ‘or’ as well as ‘and’ in a serial list, they do recommend that internal communication and press releases do away with the favourite of many an author.
In a lot of cases, the Oxford comma can remove ambiguity. For instance:
My usual breakfast is coffee, bacon and eggs and toast.
Is this bacon + eggs & toast or bacon and eggs + toast?
The Oxford comma removes this ambiguity:
My usual breakfast is coffee, bacon and eggs, and toast.
That being said, in this day and age of digital communication, and 140 characters or less is there room in the modern world for old-school grammar or should we try and preserve the last bastion of the Queen’s English?
Check out the Independent (UK) for more info, or hit up Twitter — there’s more than an opinion or two there. Don’t forget to let us know what you think in the comments section!
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