Breaking news about the Oxford comma

Life is nasty, brutish, and short (or, to introduce unnecessary ambiguity, “life is nasty, brutish and short.”)  More here.

The “Oxford” is that final comma before the “and”.  It got its name from the Oxford University Press, whose style guide has been requiring its use for decades. Wikipedia describes the Oxford as the comma “immediately before a coordinating conjunction (usually and or or, and sometimes nor) preceding the final item in a list of three or more items. For example, a list of three countries can be punctuated as either “Portugal, Spain, and France” (with the comma) or as “Portugal, Spain and France” (without the comma).

The Oxford comma, the mark of a clear, precise, and judicious writer, made the news today.

The Associated Press | Posted: 06/30/2011 05:52:57 AM PDT

LONDON—A Twitter report that Oxford has 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 in the two previous sentences? An “Oxford comma” was used before “and” in the first sentence, but is absent in the second, per The Associated Press Stylebook. Guides to correct style differ and the issue has become heated on Twitter.