Add Yahoo as a preferred source to see more of our stories on Google. The Oxford comma is the comma used before the final conjunction in a list of three or more items. When writing a list, of course, ...

If you’re looking for a grammatical convention guaranteed to spark an unnecessarily outraged debate, look no further than the Oxford comma [Editor’s note: I don’t know that I’d call it unnecessary].

I get asked every so often what all the hullabaloo is about the Oxford comma, also known as the serial or Harvard comma. I not only use it but am an adamant supporter. Why? First, let’s look at what ...

Mid last week, I had just finished reading the sad story of Jean-Pierre Adams, a former footballer of international acclaim when I switched tabs on my office desktop computer to see what was new in my ...

Editor’s Note: John McWhorter teaches linguistics, American studies, philosophy and music history at Columbia University and is the author of “Words on the Move.” The opinions expressed in this ...

A student in my “History of the English Language” course stopped me after class a few weeks ago and asked, “I was just wondering—how do you feel about the Oxford comma?” She could have asked about the ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. Much ink has been spilled recently about how the lack of a comma could cost a local dairy millions of dollars in overtime pay ...

Anyone who has written for the Brown Daily Herald has had to put up with the stain of barbarism that persists in its style guide. I am referring to the rule that prohibits the use of the Oxford comma, ...

When you're writing or typing and begin to list items in consecutive order, do you add a comma prior to the conjunction before the final item? Or not? The inclusion of that final comma is a great ...