The Oxford Comma and Me

 

                   A comma rests on the grass at Oxford University.

My husband and I don't disagree on much. The biggest dispute in our marriage is the Oxford comma, which he believes in with the same strength as a three-year old believes it was Santa who filled the stockings, left the gifts under the tree, ate the snack left on the mantle and finally took the carrots for his reindeer up the chimney.

I think back over the decades to my English teacher, Mr. D'Orlando, a handsome man who could have been a Spanish hero in any movie. The girls in the class could barely control their drooling. He even had the toughest football players reading poetry and discussing the meanings with care.

He never mentioned the Oxford comma as such, but told us the comma was a substitute for the word and. It was no news. Last year, our English teacher Mr. Bond, a devotee of theater and good books when discussing the way punctuation can add or detract from writing, said the same thing. 

Thus, my viewpoint was cast in enough marble to build a monument. I see if someone writes, a dog, cat, a turtle, and a horse were in the garden what they are saying is a dog, a cat, a turtle and and a horse were in the garden. 

Since both men created a life-long passion for reading in depth in a way I hadn't read before, their words hold weight.

I suspect that most readers don't notice whether an Oxford comma is there or not but gloss over the sentence and happily go on to the next. 

The Oxford comma is not a deal-breaker in our marriage.