Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and I’m speaking today in defense of the Oxford comma.
This little punctuation mark is also called the serial comma. It’s the comma that appears in a list before the conjunction. For example, in the phrase “peanut butter, jelly, and bread,” it appears after “jelly.”
Some people think this comma is redundant. After all, doesn’t the “and” already break up the list? Personally, I don’t think the “and” is enough of a break. Most people include a natural pause before the “and” that should be indicated grammatically by a comma. Also, if your list includes items with multiple nouns, separated by “and,” it’s now confusing which “and” belongs to the nouns and which belongs to the list.
There’s a classic example of a sentence that doesn’t work without the serial comma. “I dedicate this book to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.” Without the serial comma, it sounds like your parents are Ayn Rand and God. Leave it to the good old serial comma to rescue the meaning.
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