This post first appeared on LinkedIn in 2022 and has been lightly edited for this site.
Controversy, argument, debate—some people love serial commas, and others hate them, and generally neither side is quiet about their opinions. I’ve actually seen arguments get pretty heated—granted, no fisticuffs but close enough. Today, I’ll go over a few common points related to using or not using commas with a series of items. Perhaps this information can help quell future arguments among those who argue over such things. Resources are available at the end for further reading on the topic.
Using Commas in a Series
Adding a comma between items of a series goes without question. Style manuals generally recommend this use, but there are exceptions with certain rhetorical devices like polysyndeton, which was mentioned in a previous post. Disagreement comes into play when discussing whether to add a comma after the penultimate item and before the conjunction (and, or, nor, etc.) in a series. A comma placed in this position is called a serial comma (or an Oxford comma).
Serial comma: He has a cup, a pad of paper, and a pencil on his desk.
No serial comma: He has a cup, a pad of paper and a pencil on his desk.
Most style manuals recommend using the serial comma. This idea of “most style manuals” is anecdotal to a certain extent—of the twenty-plus style manuals (actually closer to thirty) I reviewed, the majority that included information on the topic recommend including the serial comma to reduce ambiguity and confusion—more on the idea of “majority” in a moment.
Serial comma: They honored my parents, Natalie Wood, and Elvis Presley.
No serial comma: They honored my parents, Natalie Wood and Elvis Presley.
With the serial comma, it is easy to distinguish that there are four people (my two parents and two celebrities). Without the serial comma, it creates an appositive and implies that my parents are Natalie Wood and Elvis Presley—they are not.
However, the serial comma can sometimes create confusion.
Serial comma: They honored my mother, Natalie Wood, and Elvis Presley.
No serial comma: They honored my mother, Natalie Wood and Elvis Presley.
The first example can be interpreted as my mother being Natalie Wood, but she isn’t. The second example clarifies the intent, but there is a problem with not using the serial comma because it would be stylistically inconsistent with other lists in a work that may use the serial comma. A better option would be to reorder the list to eliminate any ambiguity. Another option would be to change the list structure.
Reordering with a serial comma: They honored Natalie Wood, Elvis Presley, and my mother.
Restructuring with no commas: They honored Natalie Wood and Elvis Presley as well as my mother.
Both updates solve the confusion issue.
Arguments Against the Serial Comma
I heard an apocryphal story about why we shouldn’t use a serial comma. The reasoning is logical enough, but I have not been able to find any legitimate references to support it. As I have heard, since the commas are supposed to take the place of conjunctions in a series, adding a comma before the conjunction at the end would not make sense because the conjunction is still present. Fair enough, actually.
No commas: I had bread and broccoli and ham and corn for lunch.
With commas, but no serial comma: I had bread, broccoli, ham and corn for lunch.
Another reason against using the serial comma is based on journalism and space limitations in print publications. It has been argued that omitting the serial comma can slim the amount of space required to print an article and, therefore, can save money. This grounding seems to be supported to a certain extent. As mentioned, I have several style manuals; however, only five recommend avoiding serial commas. Four are from news organizations—Associated Press, New York Times, Economist, and Times—and the fifth resource is the style manual by UNESCO. The anomaly of UNESCO genuinely has me confused, and I will touch on that in a bit.
The dichotomy in styles between news and non-news organizations seems to uphold the idea that there is a distinct journalistic style and a non-journalistic style. However, the journalistic style manuals tend to have phrasings like “Do not use the serial comma, but…” and then list several exceptions to the rule. It seems unnecessarily complicated, to be honest. In addition to this, adding the serial comma only in certain circumstances to avoid confusion and then not adding it in other situations creates a stylistic inconsistency across a work.
Literary Style Versus Journalistic Style
Given that non-news publishing houses tend to have a different preference from news organizations, one could argue that using or not using the serial comma is a matter of a literary (or academic) style versus a journalistic style. This is why the UNESCO preference for not using the serial comma is a bit out of place since much of the work published by UNESCO is academic (and sometimes legal) in nature.
In the end, it is important to emphasize that style preference is simply that, a preference, not a steadfast rule of grammar. Personally, I default to the serial comma; it just seems to make more sense as there are fewer exceptions to the rule. This doesn’t make it the right way to do things, and I understand that. As an editor, I often need to adjust my preferences to those of a writer or publisher, much to my chagrin. So, I take a deep breath and remind myself that it is punctuation, not punch-uation.
References
Below is a short list of references consulted for information on preferred usage regarding serial commas. Resources with no prescribed preferences are not listed.
American Psychological Association. 2020. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 7th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
The Associated Press Stylebook 2020–2022. 2020. 55th ed. New York: Basic Books.
The Chicago Manual of Style. 2017. 17th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Christiansen, Stacy L., Cheryl Iverson, Annette Flanagin, et al. 2020. AMA Manual of Style: A Guide for Authors and Editors. 11th ed. New York: Oxford University Press.
The Economist Style Guide. 2018. 12th ed. London: Profile Books.
Fowler, H. Ramsey, Jane E. Aaron, and Janice Okoomian. 2007. The Little, Brown Handbook: Instructor’s Annotated Edition. 10th ed. New York: Pearson Education.
Hacker, Diana, and Nancy Sommers. 2021. A Pocket Style Manual. 9th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s.
MLA Handbook. 2021. 9th ed. New York: Modern Language Association of America.
New Hart’s Rules: The Oxford Style Guide. 2014. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sabin, William A. 2011. The Gregg Reference Manual: A Manual of Style, Grammar, Usage, and Formatting. 11th ed., tribute ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Siegal, Allan M., and William G. Connolly. 2015. The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage. 5th ed. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Sullivan, K. D., and Merilee Eggleston. 2006. The McGraw-Hill Desk Reference for Editors, Writers, and Proofreaders. New York: McGraw-Hill.
The Times Style Guide: A Guide to English Usage. 2017. 2nd ed. Glasgow: HarperCollins.
UNESCO. 2004. Style Manual for the Presentation of English-Language Texts Intended for Publication by UNESCO. 2nd ed. Paris: UNESCO.