This blog shares some of our thoughts about plain language, and the latest discussions about plain English and clear design in New Zealand, and around the world.

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01 July 2011

The Oxford comma lives!

This from Stuff:
A report that Oxford University had changed its comma rule left some punctuation obsessives  alarmed, annoyed, and distraught. Passions subsided as the university said the news was imprecise, incomplete and misleading.

Catch the difference between the two previous sentences? An "Oxford comma" was used before "and" in the first sentence, but is absent in the second, in accordance with the style used by The Associated Press.

Guides to correct style differ and the issue became heated on Twitter after reports of the Oxford comma's demise. But have no fear, comma-philes: the Oxford comma lives...

[see Stuff for the rest of the article]

1 comment:

  1. And another word on the topic from Brain Traffic:
    http://blog.braintraffic.com/2011/07/serial-killer-the-dissing-of-the-oxford-comma/

    Love the video clip!

    ReplyDelete