I'm sure some of you are asking yourselves (or me) "What on earth is the Oxford comma?" Well, I shall explain it post-haste.
The Oxford comma is the comma that comes before the word "and" when you are listing things. For example: The American flag is red, white, and blue. Did you notice the bolded comma before the "and"? That is our dear friend, the Oxford comma. Unfortunately, some rule was made up a few years ago, and it is now acceptable to not use the Oxford comma. For example: The American flag is red, white and blue. (You will never know how much it pained me to not put O.C. in there.) Now, to some people, leaving out the Oxford comma is not a big deal, but to me, it is. Not only does it look really weird and pain me emotionally, leaving O.C. out of sentences just doesn't work in many cases. Here is an example of a sentence with the Oxford comma: She took a photograph of her parents, the president, and the vice president. (Meaning, she took a photo of her parents, a photo of the president, and a photo of the vice president.) Here is the same sentence without the Oxford comma: She took a photograph of her parents, the president and the vice president. (This sounds as if her mother and father were the president and the vice president, which isn't what the sentence is actually saying.) I suppose the war between the Oxford comma believers and non-believers is somewhat silly, is not life-changing. But I believe that the Oxford comma is very important. I've grown up using it, and I'm not going to drop it, no matter what. I shall continue to use proper punctuation the proper way. Leave a Reply. |
BellaBSU student
Musical fanatic Lover of books and all things cake-related Archives
April 2018
|