The Oxford Comma

Check out this post from Nicholas Rossis’ blog on a pet peeve topic of mine, The Oxford Comma.

Nicholas C. Rossis

I mentioned the Oxford comma recently in a conversation with Stefan. In case you haven’t heard of it, here is the definition, courtesy of Grammarly:

The Oxford (or serial) comma is the final comma in a list of things. For example:

Please bring me a pencil, eraser, and notebook.

The Oxford comma comes right after eraser.

Use of the Oxford comma is stylistic, meaning that some style guides demand its use while others don’t. AP Style—the style guide that newspaper reporters adhere to—does not require the use of the Oxford comma. The sentence above written in AP style would look like this:

Please bring me a pencil, eraser and notebook.

Unless you’re writing for a particular publication or drafting an essay for school, whether or not you use the Oxford comma is generally up to you. However, omitting it can sometimes cause some strange misunderstandings.

I love my parents…

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