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To comma, or not, to comma, that, is the query
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/holy-writIf I worked for a publication that did not use the serial comma, I would adjust—convert from orthodox to reformed—but for now I remain loyal to the serial comma, because it actually does sometimes prevent ambiguity and because I’ve gotten used to the way it looks. It gives starch to the prose, and can be very effective. If a sentence were a picket fence, the serial commas would be posts at regular intervals.
The term “Oxford comma” refers to the Oxford University Press, whose house style is to use the serial comma. (The public-relations department at Oxford doesn’t insist on it, however. Presumably P.R. people see it as a waste of time and space. The serial comma is a pawn in the war between town and gown.) To call it the Oxford comma gives it a bit of class, a little snob appeal. Chances are that if you use the Oxford comma you brush the crumbs off your shirtfront before going out./div]
E. B. White once put it, “Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.”
The term “Oxford comma” refers to the Oxford University Press, whose house style is to use the serial comma. (The public-relations department at Oxford doesn’t insist on it, however. Presumably P.R. people see it as a waste of time and space. The serial comma is a pawn in the war between town and gown.) To call it the Oxford comma gives it a bit of class, a little snob appeal. Chances are that if you use the Oxford comma you brush the crumbs off your shirtfront before going out./div]
E. B. White once put it, “Commas in The New Yorker fall with the precision of knives in a circus act, outlining the victim.”
It’s not always easy to decide what’s restrictive. That’s where judgment comes in. For instance, here is a sentence, chock-full of commas, from this magazine, that was quoted by Ben Yagoda in an online article for the Times: “Before Atwater died, of brain cancer, in 1991, he expressed regret.” Yagoda wrote, “No other publication would put a comma after ‘died’ or ‘cancer.’ The New Yorker does so because otherwise (or so the thinking goes), the sentence would suggest that Atwater died multiple times and of multiple causes.” He added, “That is nutty, of course.” The Times—along with Yagoda, who teaches journalism—prefers an “open” style of punctuation, where the words stream together and every phrase or clause is of equal moment, leaving the reader to figure it out. Some readers are especially proud of their ability to figure it out and like to write letters of complaint and, put, a, comma, after, every, word, to show us the error of our ways.
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in my opinion!
