A couple years ago, I paid for a stall at the Portland Night Market’s special holiday weekend thing. The Night Market’s holiday thing falls sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas – a special time of year, marked by compromised frugality and desperation, when trinkets and knickknacks become suddenly valuable. I predicted this would be a good opportunity to sell my book and some complimentary postcards to holiday shoppers shopping for a special someone (or enemy) who could use a gift that wasn’t food or socks or stinky candles.
It was a madhouse, crush of people – the kind of gathering that, from this lonely perch several months deep in a pandemic, seems dizzyingly foolish and wonderful. The shoppers were all giddy on chocolate samples, samples of craft cheeses and salsas, beer and wine and liquor samples. Occasionally, someone from the meandering throngs would peel off and wander over to where I was – wedged between an array of artisan butters (with samples) and another booth of artisan liquors (also with generous samples).
“What do you have here?” they’d ask.
(I’d prepared a snappy elevator pitch about the book.) “It’s a collection of non-fiction short stories that are funny and not funny about life, death and customer service.”
I got some laughs. I even sold some books. Those who weren’t interested would ease back from my booth – as one would politely back away from the unlucky sampler at Costco who was given the unenviable task of demonstrating detergent or glass cleaner. But the curious ones who weren’t scared away by a book stayed and thumbed through the pages to read a sample and make small talk.
Hocking the book at the Night Market afforded a unique opportunity to watch people skim the pages in real time. Most everyone went straight for the first line (as I do), and then, curiously, they skipped to the back, to the author bio. And I could always tell when they got to the part about Oxford commas:
"Nathaniel does not use Oxford commas."
Their expression changed. Those who were amused were much more likely to buy the book. Those who were not, winced, and shut the book and hurried away. (It was a 50/50 split.)
“You don’t use Oxford commas?!” asked one older gentleman.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
He said, “What the hell is wrong with you?”
The man shook his head cartoonishly and put down the book. He was still shaking his head when he walked away. I watched him walk over to a lady who was trying samples of hot sauces. He said something to her, she looked over at me. I waved. The man whispered something else into her ear. She looked horrified – as if he’d just stuck his tongue in her ear.
Really now.
For a brief refresh, an Oxford comma (or, the serial comma) is an unusual comma with an unusual job. You can find it at the end of a sentence containing multiple subjects or a list of items. The Oxford comma is used to separate the penultimate item from the very last item. The casual tendency is to finish a sentence with an “and” separating the last two subjects. Because that is how we talk. But this is “incorrect” since an “and” joins together those last two items while the Oxford comma keeps them separate.
I love commas. But I am also wary of them, so I try to use them sparingly. Before I became a changed man, and accepted I was wrong about the Oxford, I believed their presence indicated sloppiness, an over-eagerness to dispense a comma willy-nilly, with little regard to its true usefulness. For me, the Oxford comma cheapened the basic comma. I would have even described the Oxford comma as a kind of anti-comma. I love a basic comma for its ability to add a pause or a break – and, by proxy, a conversational aire to a sentence – while the Oxford comma made a sentence overly structured and turned the cadence stilted and clunky. To garnish a sentence with the Oxford was to cater to the sentence’s structure, rather than its content. (More on this foolishness later.)
Notice the absence of the Oxford comma between “shipment” and “or” in this sentence: “Overtime rules do not apply to the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of agricultural produce; meat and fish products; and perishable foods.”
That infamous sentence landed a Maine shipping company in hot water. Here, the absence of an Oxford comma inspired a class action lawsuit brought by truck drivers who claimed they were denied thousands of dollars in overtime pay. The drivers argued the absent punctuation between “shipment” and “or” lumped them with the box-packers. The delivery drivers – who don’t pack boxes, and who were supposedly expected to work overtime to make their rounds – took exception to this inclusion.
(As a side note – I actually agree with the delivery drivers on this one. Though, not because of the supposed sloppy punctuation of their HR department. But because all workers who work overtime should be paid overtime wages. Period.)
That sentence sure was whopper, but its message was clear enough without the Oxford comma: NOBODY at this company gets paid overtime.
Here, the Oxford wants to take a regular, perfectly understandable sentence and impose on it silly and unnecessary rules. And while I can’t speak for the people involved in this specific case, I have found Oxford-correctors to be a particularly obnoxious breed of sanctimonious grammar grandstanders, wagging fingers at everybody in the room like the vegan some monster invited to your Thanksgiving dinner.
Without an Oxford comma, this is that, and that is this and you can’t have this if you don’t have that. And so on.
For fear of looking like a dolt, everyone agrees with the Oxford bully.
This is where my grudge with the Oxford comma began, in college probably, since college is where I encountered the most concentrated community of unproven English majors. Likely, it was in one of our insufferable peer editing groups where some contrarian fedora-wearing Chauncy was only too willing to point out the error in my copy. With much fanfare, it was announced that I chronically omitted Oxford commas and habitually misled my readers with improper punctuation.
That pretty much sums up college.
College is where I learned the Oxford comma is essentially the middle-manager of punctuations – a nobody who would happily impose itself on an otherwise functional system and muck-up the gears for its own self-gratification.
Oxfordians aside, I commend whomever noticed the omitted Oxford comma in The Case of the Underpaid Delivery Drivers for two reasons:
In the absence of the Oxford comma, they saw their shot for an overdue payday, and they went for it. For that, I salute their resourcefulness and creativity. When they hitched the crux of their case to the Oxford they took what would otherwise have been a humdrum procedural over unpaid wages and made it go viral.
If arguing the Oxford was a boon for their case, it was also a boon for my grudge against the punctuation since therein was unwittingly created the most delicious articulation to how much a killjoy this bratty little dot can be.
Only an argument for the Oxford could fly in court. Only a lawyer could defend a place in this world for a punctuation whose singular job is to be a wet blanket. To perpetuate needless rules and fussiness – structure for structure’s sake. To champion the Oxford is to coddle the binary reader who cares more for rules than for content.
I’ve always admired writers whose prose meets a reader only half way. Writers who will lead a reader up to a certain point and then let go, allowing the reader to take it the rest of the way. The reader fills in the blank spaces with their imagination and populates what isn’t or what is said with their own expectations and suspicions.
In this give-and-take, the reader is an invested participant and omitting an Oxford comma, if it be the purview of the writer, should go blithely unnoticed. Now, I’m not saying that instructions for changing the oil in your car should read like T. S. Eliot. But there can be a balance.
And with that said, I can freely admit – I was wrong about the Oxford comma.
As noted, my prohibition of the Oxford comma originated from a lasting loathe of finger-wagging Chauncys and a distaste for accommodating the binary reader. That has not changed. But after time, and after too many pointless (and surprisingly vitriolic) arguments, eventually I tempered my campaign to eradicate this futile punctuation. With age, and a reduced metabolism, I realized that boycotting the Oxford comma was probably childish and a huge waste of time and probably invited more meaningless arguments than if I’d just left the subject alone.
What’s more, I had turned myself into a binary writer who believes there is only one way to do the thing. I had become the Chauncy.
So if I am going to put my money where my mouth is, I concede – sometimes it’s okay to allow the Oxford comma. It’s okay to cater to structure, especially when the structure clarifies the content. And so, after years of militant rigidity, I yield to the Oxford comma.
But it didn’t stop there.
In my begrudged acceptance of the Oxford comma I’ve set off a chain reaction that goes beyond just the reading and writing of a persnickety punctuation. The Oxford comma revealed in me a larger tendency to interpret things in only rights and wrongs and no in-betweens – a perspective that (perhaps not coincidentally) ran parallel with persistent disappointment.
I have since tried to take my changed perspective on the Oxford and apply it worldwide. The world is just too complicated for rigid interpretations. Our environments are roiling with nuance and if I am to navigate their complexities I would do well to equip myself with tools and practices that help me understand and reconcile, rather than the opposite.
Enter: the asterisk.
It seems fitting I could shake up a former rigidity by dropping my quarrel with a punctuation. Since this more easy-going, laissez faire version of myself is sponsored by yet another punctuation, the asterisk, whose usefulness can also be applied with a worldwide scope.
The asterisk may be the only punctuation to rival the might and usefulness of the standard comma. To wield an asterisk, I feel better equipped to navigate our world and freed to enjoy more of its varietal contradictions. Thriller, for example, is best paired with an asterisk. As are all stop signs. And most hats. And that time you’re sharing an appetizer with friends and there’s only one cheese curd left? Asterisk city.
And if I may belabor the metaphor, I believe politics, specifically our current brand of American clownery, could use a lot more asterisk. We are seized by rigidity. We seem to have lost any willingness to work with or understand or value anyone who may disagree with us. This is something I struggle with daily, so thank God for the asterisk.
This unassuming little dot may just be the punctuation of consideration. Further, since I am accustomed to fits of romanticism, I believe the asterisk could very well be the flagship for America’s next political party.
The asterisk, applied liberally and judiciously, might help us observe hot button topics, and controversial people from multiple angles while allowing us to remain true to our core beliefs. Maybe that sounds incredibly naive, especially in these polarized times. And that’s fine. But do you have a better idea? I say we give the old asterisk a try. Heck, I’m willing to try anything at this point – especially if it leads us to better understanding, consideration, cooperation, and brotherhood.*
*I'm being serious.