The Oxford Comma: It IS Important!

This week I was teaching Comma Rules to my Juniors and we were going over the “Commas in a Series” Rule, otherwise known as the Oxford Comma.   Just about all current grammar and style books, including the Modern Language Association (MLA) employ the rule that the comma is needed before the word “and” in a series to avoid confusion.  The only Style Guide that does not use the Oxford Comma is the Associated Press Stylebook.  Well, at my school, we do use MLA format for formal writing, so my students will learn and use this comma.

Also, there is a difference between: 

At the barbecue, I ate a hamburger, a hot dog, macaroni and cheese.

                                                                 And

At the barbeque, I ate a hamburger, a hot dog, macaroni, and cheese. 

 To bring this grammar point to the real world for my students, we talked about the dreaded, yet inevitable, Christmas card most families take.  We looked at some photo websites that make holiday cards to see examples of how families write their names to check for Oxford Comma usage.  We looked at Shutterfly.com.  To our surprise, almost all the model cards we looked at did not use the Oxford Comma.  This simply clumps the last two names together as if they were conjoined twins or macaroni and cheese, and not macaroni AND cheese. 

 

So, we sent a note to Shutterfly’s feedback department and received an extremely generic response from them.  We are hoping to hear a little bit more on this issue.  Quite simply, they can just tell us that they are abiding by the AP Stylebook, and then, well, okay Shutterfly can win that round.  But for now, my students are going to help mom and dad send out grammatically and stylistically correct Christmas cards to everyone, anyone, (Oxford Comma) and all.