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[penguinofhonor]

I don't find looking at languages in terms of efficiency very compelling. I mean, if we are, then who's to say that "information density per amount of written symbols" is the most important measurement? Maybe we should take other things into account. The Oxford comma makes a difference in a tiny percentage of lists, but it still costs time and money to print when it's unnecessary. Anything that requires effort without communicating more information makes our language more bloated and difficult to use.

[Tack]

U rly thnk so?

[penguinofhonor]

Not really. That last post is a little devil's advocatey.

[Reelya]

Then you should use the Oxford comma when needed and omit it when not needed. Best of both worlds.

But I think the comma does convey information: it indicates where you'd take a pause in the spoken form, which can smooth out the flow when people are reading something out loud, and might even make it easier to parse.

Although you could phrase that at "expressiveness" instead of "efficiency", it has a similar meaning. If you take the style guide advice of arbitrarily reordering lists merely to avoid the Oxford comma, it loses an entire layer of meaning, as well as losing the ability to succinctly express the spoken form: because we know there is no ambiguity when the same thing is spoken. Why limit the written language to be able to express less, for no good reason?

[Tack]

Farenheit 451 has your answer.

[Helgoland]

PTW.

[Bauglir]

Anything that requires effort without communicating more information makes our language more bloated and difficult to use.

I don't find looking at languages in terms of efficiency very compelling.

actually that second quote is my usual response to lots of people proposing overhauls to the language, but while i know your post is devil's advocatey, the counterargument is just too obvious not to make

[penguinofhonor]

Note that most of that post comes after an "if" referring to a hypothetical situation where we are focusing on efficiency.

Good post, this is the kind of clarification I was looking for.

[Helgoland]

Who even says that 'Oxford comma - yes or no?' is a well-defined question?

Consider the following: Pretty much everyone would answer 'Full stops - yes or no?' with 'Yes', but most of the people giving that answer probably omit full stops when chatting or sending texts. Usage of full stops can be appropriate or inappropriate depending on the situation and intended effect on the recipient of the message.

The same goes for the Oxford comma, I guess. If you want to give a somewhat formal, learned impression, use it - because that's what the Oxford comma conveys. If you're trying to play up your plebeian attitude and emphasize your connection to Joe Average, don't. There's places where the Oxford comma is an absolute must - Oxford, for example - and there's places where it would be at least a slight faux pas.

I personally do use it, even in places where most people don't. The reason isn't grammatical though: It's that I do on some level want to come across as intellectual, as educated. Try counting the words with non-Germanic roots in the preceding paragraph to see another way I (subconsciously) work towards that goal.

[Tack]

I would say that full stops are more of a "I realize I should, but I couldn't be bothered", compared to the Oxford comma which seems notably contentious.

[nenjin]

FWIW when I was in journalism school the Oxford comma did not reign supreme. According the AP style guide the last items on a list are joined by "and", not separated by a comma. This is the format most media uses.

And it used to cause me no end to grief in college, because papers I submitted to my Journalism professors would get dinged for Oxford-style punctuation, while my papers to History and English professors would get dinged for AP-style punctuation. It was super freaking annoying having to shift between the two multiple times a day based on what I was writing and for whom.

[TheBiggerFish]

It should really just be "Do the comma when you need the comma, don't do the comma when you should not have the comma, and if you could do either, do what seems best."

At least, that's my opinion.

[Cyroth]

Chiming in as a non-native english speaker, I really don't like the Oxford Comma or its users.
To me it looks out of place and usually causes me to reread the sentence because I think I've misread something.

Going by the example that was already given, I'd never interpret "Obama invited Bush, Kennedy and the strippers" as meaning that he invited Bush and a band named Kennedy and the strippers. That there is no "and" in front of Kennedy ("Bush and Kennedy and the strippers") already makes clear to me that these have to be 3 seperate items.

On the other hand "...invited Bush, Kennedy, and the strippers" would cause severe confusion because to me it looks like somebody edited the list by cutting something out and then messed up the formatting.

[SirQuiamus]

lelelel wut m8

[Helgoland]

I knew it - LW's bite is infectious after all! Ready the flamethrowers, folks - we'll be roasting some shitposters tonight.