What is it, exactly, you ask? I'm so glad you asked. Let me demonstrate for you. The Oxford Comma, or OC as I've come to call it, is the comma that is present before the conjunction (like the word and, but, or) when you are making a list of things. To demonstrate the usage: This, That, and the Other. It's the comma after "that" and before "and".
Why is it so hideous to me? Well, it's like this. I was taught to NOT use the Oxford Comma. From literally grammar school on (pardon the pun), I was instructed to write without it. Even up through my master's degree, it was eschewed by my instructors, one and all. Learning to use it has been difficult, to say the least. Now I find myself questioning where to put it and if it is in fact needed in places where it isn't needed. Life is so much simpler when you don't have to worry about it.
It shouldn't be so difficult to learn to use it properly, really. After all, it's just a comma. Here's an example as to why it's important to use it.
But it's the principle of the thing. I spent over 12 years writing things that were graded on not only content but correct grammar and punctuation and never ONCE was I ever dinged for not using it. It's kinda hard to UNlearn that overnight. In fact, I will go ahead and say it's downright impossible to unlearn it overnight.
Fortunately, I have an amazing editor who understands my issue with the OC and for the most part laughs at my trips and stumbles over using the stupid thing as she journeys with me through the pages of my world. Now if I had a hero in shining armor that could ride up on his white horse and slay the dragon that is the OC for me, my life would be perfect.
Hmm, maybe that could be a new story line. Characters that come to the writer's rescue by doing away with grammar and punctuation rules that foil the writer....
#southernfamilytiesbooks
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