Missing comma sparks outrage

I will state this with more rancor than in previous threads on this topic. I absolutely can’t stand any failure to use the Oxford comma. That extra effort and fractions of a second to parse a sentence without it irk me every single time.

So Keith has it almost right in my view. But it’s not the pause caused by the comma. It’s the extra pause to parse the sentence that lacks the comma that irks me. Every single time. The reader shouldn’t have to do extra work to understand a sentence.

Put a different way. There are two types of readers — those who readily understand a sentence with or without the Oxford comma (we know who you are above); and those like me, who readily understand a sentence that uses it but are tripped up, even momentarily, when it’s not there. The writer has to choose whether to irk the second type.

And I haven’t reached ambiguity yet. As a daily legal writer and reader, I have seen lawyers (and legislators) who don’t use the Oxford comma who create and have caused in the past an inordinate amount of legal ambiguity translating into an incalculable amount of societal cost (in real currency).
 
Maybe if all you anglophiles started calling it by its more usual name, the serial comma, I would find the notion of requiring it less otiose. But probably not. If it matters, the Chicago Manual of Style recommends it but considers it optional, which is probably why no one I have published for requires it.
 
I'd like to thank my parents, Joseph Stalin and Ayn Rand.

You could rewrite it, as some have suggested above, to solve the ambiguity without adding the serial comma:

I'd like to thank Joseph Stalin, Ayn Rand, and my parents.

But then you would be giving priority to some objectionable people over your own parents, who have been relegated to last in the list.

Just use the fucking serial comma.
 
I'd like my parents, and also Joseph Stalin and Ayn Rand.

I'd like to thank my parents, but also Joseph Stalin and Ayn Rand.

I could go on, but it would entail at least implying why you are thanking that second off couple. The serial comma or lack of it hardly matte rd in the face of the mysteries in that sentence.

People can go on coming up with examples, some of them actually likely ones. And, in the case of those sentences, if a slight rewrite isn't what you want, you can add the serial comma without the necessity of a needless dictat. Or you could just always use it yourself and concern yourself with the ambiguities of others in the few cases that they actually arise.
 
Jonathon is not outraged by this issue. I move that he be banned from the internet.

He’s still,welcome to come to NYC,and bring wine of course.
 
Why would a party with two strippers named JFK and Castro be any less surreal and unlikely than a party attended by JFK, Castro and strippers. Ok, JFK and strippers maybe, but not both JFK and Castro, and also strippers.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
We seem to be in the middle of a Jonathon telethan.
Click to expand...

Jeez, Oswaldo, Jay has always had a problem spelling my first name, but you used to be able to manage it.
Click to expand...

Professor, it's humor! Shall I explain?
 
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