Whither the Oxford Comma?

I’m one of those heretic writers/editors who does not use the Oxford comma. We don’t use it at work so I’ve gotten used to avoiding it. If I worked somewhere else, would I use it?

I’m not sure. I’ve been thinking about this recently since I read Between You and Me by Mary Norris, a copy-editor for the New Yorker. Of course this magazine uses the Oxford comma and given that its language standards are legendarily high, should I also be including a comma before every “and”?

There is a need for the Oxford comma in a sentence like “I invited my parents, Hillary Clinton, and Donald Trump to the party” because that second comma clarifies that Clinton and Trump are not your parents. (Technically, if they were your parents, the sentence would still need a second comma, just in a different place: “I invited my parents, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, to the party.”) But a sentence like “On this Fourth of July, salute the red, white and blue” does not need an Oxford comma because the sentence is easy to understand either way. So why use a punctuation mark that doesn’t add anything?

Commas are, I think, a notorious judgment call in writing. I try to be consistent with them. I will use Oxford commas in longer lists or sentences with more than one clause: “Cersei found out about the stockpiled wildfire beneath the sept, put on a magnificent leather and metal dress, poured another glass of wine, and watched her enemies burn.” I will also use the comma if there is an “and” in an individual unit of the sentence: “I saw Bananarama, Leonard Cohen, and Hall and Oates at the music festival.” These bring clarity. If I can get away without that extra comma, however, I don’t use it. Most of the time, “and” takes the place of a comma anyway.

I’d prefer for language to be streamlined and have fewer punctuation marks to stop the reader. But there’s no reason to be dogmatic and if an Oxford comma means less confusion, I’ll put it in. The English language is a notoriously inexact science but the overarching rule is that clarity is number one.

Admit it: You want more of this. Join me next time when I expound on the difference between “that” and “which,” why splitting infinitives is obscene, the proper use of the em and en dash, and why the diaeresis exists.