Oxford Writing and Style Guide no longer recommending the Oxford comma

[prodigy]

As a general rule, do not use the serial/Oxford comma: so write ‘a, b and c’ not ‘a, b, and c’. But when a comma would assist in the meaning of the sentence or helps to resolve ambiguity, it can be used – especially where one of the items in the list is already joined by ‘and’:

They had a choice between croissants, bacon and eggs, and muesli.

There are some cases where the comma is clearly obligatory:

The bishops of Canterbury, Oxford, Bath and Wells, and Salisbury.

I've never been so vindicated. I am practically the only Oxford comma opponent I know. Lo siento, Henry Higgins, the damned thing is antiquated for general use and in no way phonetically represents the flow of the spoken word!

Comments

[themis]

I am crying real tears of betrayal. NOOOOO.

[prodigy]

Well, thankfully for you, there is no actual official regulatory board for the English language and if there were I should hope it wouldn't be Oxford. It's more that the Oxford comma is the hill I so often see hardcore-prescriptivist Anglophone would-be grammar snobs choose to die on, or, the sort of person who thinks Eats, Shoots, and Leaves is the height of wit and to whom it has never occurred that it is troubling that all of their favorite books were written by white Brits and contain no poor people. It's got a certain schadenfreude glister to see the great guns of linguistic prescriptivism turned on the people who usually love it so much.

So, I'm sure Chicago will still avail you. I'm not a fan of the Oxford style overall for personal use, but it's pretty contextual to the Queen's English in a lot of cases so I never expected to be.

[thez]

ffffffffffff now I can't remember whether I use the Oxford comma or not. I probably use both methods, in the same paragraph.

I feel an editing spree coming on.