JCB's Ruminations on the Craft of Fiction #19
September 24, 2020
This is a departure from the ordinary fare of these ruminations, but I’d like to talk about the Oxford comma for no good reason. Like many features of "style" (as opposed to grammar), whether or not to use the Oxford comma in a series is an entirely arbitrary decision. A person’s preference is undoubtedly shaped by their reading habits. If you read a lot of journalism, you’re likely to be predominantly exposed to AP style and its eschewal of this comma. On the other hand, if you read, for example, something published by Random House under the editorship of Benjamin Dreyer, you’ll encounter the Oxford comma in every series. To put my own cards on the table, I myself also prefer seeing and using the Oxford comma.
Years ago I was listening to a panel discussion from the editors at the University of Chicago Press, who put out the Chicago Manual of Style, and, of course, the issue of the Oxford comma came up. Chicago’s style manual insists on using it, and the panelists commented that this is of course "for the sake of clarity" (not a direct quote--it has been like a decade since I listened to this panel). Someone brought up a classic example, pointing out that without the Oxford comma in "Dedicated to my parents, the Pope and Mother Teresa," there’s confusion over whether the last two items are a part of a series or set off in apposition to "parents": in other words, are we meant to understand that the dedication is for the author’s parents, who happen to be the Pope and Mother Teresa? For clarity’s sake, the panelists insisted, we should employ the Oxford comma so that this confusion does not arise. And this is the position that Chicago takes in their Manual of Style.
At this point another panelist spoke up and suggested that the same confusion can arise with the use of an Oxford comma in a similar dedication: "Dedicated to my father, the Pope, and Mother Teresa." Here there is confusion over whether "the Pope" is a member of the series or has been set off in apposition as an explanatory identification of "my father." The panelists were duly impressed with the example, the crowd applauded, and everyone agreed that sentences should be revised to eliminate ambiguities irrespective of whether they should employ the Oxford comma, which, they pointed out, was the larger advice of their style guide.
In just about every convention of style, we are shaped by what we read. Commas in a series have been used in a particular way in the majority of what you have read, and this shapes how you think about those commas in your own writing. People have very strong opinions about these things because so much experience one way or the other has shaped us to see what we’re used to seeing as "correct" and anything else as "an abomination unto the Lord your God!"
What does this mean for your fiction? Read widely. Be aware of stylistic disputes. Make no decisions without understanding the issues at play. And then do what feels right for the story. How can you go wrong? There is no right answer. Blame the character flaws of the narrator if it ever becomes a problem.