10/4/2023 0 Comments General thoughts on oxford commaIronically, while the Oxford comma is named after Oxford University Press (OUP), the University of Oxford itself actually advises its students and staff against widespread usage, unless it’s necessary to avoid confusion or misunderstandings. It is considered the norm in that particular variety of English. There are generally three arguments for using the Oxford comma: 1. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in the middle. This is partly the reason why some people are sworn enemies of the Oxford comma, while others laud it as the best thing to happen to words since the Gutenberg press. Punctuation can provide this clarity, but there are also situations where it’s not strictly necessary. When punctuation is misplaced or absent, it can make a text more difficult to read, putting pauses in weird places, emphasizing the wrong words, or combining parts of a sentence that are not meant to be combined. Authors usually have a good idea of how their text is meant to be read, but it may not be immediately obvious to readers - unless they’re given some clues. It’s there to guide readers on how a text is meant to sound, with the right flow, intonation, and pauses. The point of any punctuation mark is to make written words evoke spoken language. So, now that we have a better idea of what the Oxford comma is and does, let’s look at why it continues to cause such debate amongst grammarians and defenders of the English language. In the second example, the reader might mistakenly believe that this author is a first-rate, literary nepotism baby! In the first version of this sentence, with the Oxford comma, the author is clearly crediting four different people as their source of inspiration: their parents and two well-known horror and fantasy authors, Stephen King and Anne Rice. I’m inspired by my parents, Stephen King and Anne Rice. I’m inspired by my parents, Stephen King, and Anne Rice. Here’s another example of this put into action: In this example, is the author saying that they think Cambridge and Oxford are top colleges located in America or are they saying they applied to top colleges in America, in addition to the two famous British universities, Cambridge and Oxford? Sometimes context and common sense will give us the answer to those questions, but with the Oxford comma, there’s never any doubt, making both the author’s admission status and academic future more secure. America’s most famous colleges, Cambridge and Oxford? Make that Cambridge, Massachusetts and Oxford, Mississippi. I applied to America’s top colleges, Cambridge, and Oxford. I applied to America’s top colleges, Cambridge and Oxford. This can be a simple list of nouns or more complex clauses stacked after one another.Īdding an Oxford comma can help not only with intonation (how you might read the words aloud) but - more importantly - can better communicate the intended meaning to the reader. In this manual, it was suggested that the comma should be used to separate list items, thereby adding an extra layer of clarity to the text. The Oxford comma gets its name from a style guide published by Oxford University Press in 1905. Click to tweet! The Oxford comma separates (and clarifies) list items
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