I go with clarity, and that’s the beauty of the Oxford comma. But if an organization doesn’t use the Oxford comma, then absolutely I agree with you that being consistent about usage is best.
My colleagues at a former job liked that example a lot.
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Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
62
I had to Google to find out what an Oxford comma was. Never heard of it before. And my secondary school English teachers would have been horrified at its use. Absolutely no final comma before an “and”, for example.
By the by, when I started writing books I bought myself a style guide. I bought the one published by my normal newspaper, The Guardian. Fortunately, for this forum, its reference is food related - “A comma before the final ‘and’ in lists: straightforward ones (he ate ham, eggs and chips) do not need one, but sometimes it can help the reader (he ate cereal, kippers, bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade, and tea).”
On the occasions when the issue might crop up I can generally find a way of writing it to avoid any confusion. The Guardian’s example is not a good one as it appears to suggest that he ate tea which, of course, he didnt , as he drank it. It would very easily be rewritten.
@tomatotomato - I loved that book too, and was getting ready to post the link when I saw your post. I’m delighted to see that there are different versions of it geared to school aged children. I also think every teacher of English, anywhere, should have a copy of it too.
Love it. You may also enjoy this fun example about comma use generally, courtesy of the witty signs by El Arroyo tacos in Austin. You can even buy a sticker for yourself.
My daughter, who is 24, loves Vampire Weekend and always uses an Oxford comma.
We’ve always played “grammar games” together. I would ask her if she slept good and she’d always answer no but I slept well. That sort of thing. If someone uses an incorrect form of an adverb, we still look at each other and say LY. She’s doing graphic design work and is often called upon to review text.
I stopped in 1984 when WordPerfect (who I believe introduced the internal capital letter) automatically added space after periods, although I used a Selectric often enough for a while to have to be able to switch back and forth.
1 Like
Harters
(John Hartley - a culinary patriot, cooking and eating in northwest England)
80
One of those that drives me nuts. If I’m asked how I am, my response is that “I’m well”, not the increasingly used “I’m good”.
I still do that while typing on forums, in Word, wherever. It’s just habit after 40+ years of typing, starting with electric typewriters and moving on to CPT 8000 Word Processors, then Macs, then PC desktops and laptops. I think the ONLY place I don’t double space after a period is on my phone.