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*Learned is a weekly newsletter about words and language, written by me (@misterbob), and published every Monday. If you're interested in getting each week's letter delivered straight to your inbox, you can sign up for free right here: http://learned.substack.com. Thanks!*

*This week's excerpt comes from a section of the newsletter called **Sidetracks**, where I write about the strange and interesting things I learned about while researching and writing the main letter.  Please enjoy this little bit about a controversial bit of punctuation - The Oxford Comma.*

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# The Oxford Comma

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*Me, myself, and I*, or,*me, myself and I*? That comma after myself in the first iteration of the phrase is called the [Oxford Comma](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/what-is-the-oxford-comma/) :

>The ‘ [Oxford comma](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/serial-comma) ‘ is an [optional](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/optional) comma before the word ‘and’ at the end of a list:
*We sell books, videos, and magazines.*
>
>It’s known as the [Oxford](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/oxford) comma because it was [traditionally](https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/traditional) used by printers, readers, and editors at Oxford University Press.

There is some…debate…over whether it should be used:

*  [The Oxford Comma is Extremely Overrated](https://www.businessinsider.com/do-you-need-the-oxford-comma-2013-9) 
*  [The Oxford Comma is Pretentious](https://thewritepractice.com/oxford-commas-are-pretentious/) 
*  [I Hate the Oxford Comma: Why You Don’t Need the Oxford Comma](https://www.astoldoverbrunch.com/blog/i-hate-the-oxford-comma) 
*  [14 Reasons You Should Use the Oxford Comma](https://www.theodysseyonline.com/15-reasons-you-should-use-the-oxford-comma) 
*  [The Subtle Necessity of the Poor, Hated Oxford Comma](https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/12/subtle-necessity-oxford-comma/356035/) 
*  [15 Reasons You Should Definitely Use the Oxford Comma](https://www.buzzfeed.com/sarahhenrich/15-reasons-why-you-should-use-the-oxford-comma-yr75) 

It ought to come as no surprise to anyone who reads anything I write - I’m all in on the Oxford Comma. A list is defined by its cohesiveness and adding in the final comma before *and* delineates that the item after *and* is, in fact, the final item and not an addition to the previous item. [It can best be summed up by in the joke from which a famous (and one of my favorite) style guide takes its name](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eats,_Shoots_%26_Leaves) :

> A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and proceeds to fire it at the other patrons.
>
> “Why?” asks the confused, surviving waiter amidst the carnage, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
>
> “Well, I’m a panda,” he says. “Look it up.”
>
> The waiter turns to the relevant entry in the manual and, sure enough, finds an explanation. *“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China.  Eats, shoots and leaves."*

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*Thanks for reading!*

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