This & That: the Oxford comma is not necessary
Oh, the Oxford Comma.
I am still struggling to find your purpose in this big, complicated world — and while this world may be complicated, you, Oxford comma, are not. You are as unnecessary as the statistics class I took last semester.
Just in case you are not sure what exactly the Oxford comma is (I honestly cannot blame you if you don’t because this is how inconsequential the whole dumb thing really is), the Oxford comma is an extra comma used after the second to last item in a list of three or more items before “and” or “or.”
OK, so what really is the whole purpose of it all? Besides the fact it is completely unnecessary in every regard? I do not know.
For me, the Oxford comma just feels like overkill.
Why does there need to be a comma after each item listed if there are three or more items listed? We get it!
The reality is, there does not need to be a comma after each item to separate them at all, we got the phrase after the first comma.
It is repetitive, unnecessary and just plain annoying.
They are, in fact, so unnecessary that most newspapers completely ban their reporters from even using them in their writing.
Journalists get it, but I know how much those English scholars cannot seem to get enough of them.
In retrospect, this is precisely the problem. Call me biased because of my allegiance to journalism, but it goes to show how different areas of study are taught to either use it or not — except you should never.
Still, even taking this into consideration, I struggle to find why most people get so worked up over a stupid piece of punctuation, which in turn is not even necessary in the first place.
Ask yourself if the Oxford comma is really worth getting all up in arms about. Better yet, let me answer it for you: it really is not.
So, to all journalists and English scholars alike, let’s just finally come together for the sake of us all to finally vanquish the unnecessary evil we all know as the Oxford comma. It is finally time to admit how dumb, unnecessary and excessive the Oxford Comma really is. Case closed.
Featured Image: Illustration by Austin Banzon
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/oxford-comma-maine.html