Why do we let something as trivial as a comma divide us?

Human beings will use any excuse to go tribal, even over the most trivial issues. You don’t need examples from politics to demonstrate this, although such examples are seemingly endless. All you need to do is consult a grammar nerd.

At least people who argue over things like Star Wars vs. Star Trek, Coke vs. Pepsi, or dogs vs. cats can make a cogent case that, at least on some level, the debate matters. (For the record, Star Trek is better than Star Wars because it’s more cerebral, Pepsi tastes better than Coke, and cats are less trouble than dogs — plus, they purr.)

But if you really want to get a writer or editor riled up, all you have to do is mention the Oxford comma. The rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge, the actual schools, is nothing compared to the battle over this tiny mark that appears (or doesn’t) before the final item mentioned in a series.

Is it “red, white and blue” or “red, white, and blue”?

OH MY GOD!

It’s worse than asking a heads person to call tails at the flip of a coin or a stripes person to play solids in pool. It’s like asking a Dodgers fan to root for the Giants, or a Metallica fan to listen to “Baby Shark” on an endless loop.

Journalists vs. authors

This battle largely pits journalists, who shun the Oxford comma as though it were Ebola, against authors, who cleave to it the way Gollum clings to his “Precious.”

From journalists, I’ve heard the excuse that it takes up space on the page. But even in this era of the incredible shrinking newspaper, that’s like offering to knock a penny off the price of a car makes a damn bit of difference. It does not. Why not stop using question marks instead(?) They’re wider!

Bereft of any rational rationale for banishing the serial comma (as it’s also known), newspapers fall back on the “because they said so” excuse.

“They,” in this case, is the publishers of the supposedly venerable Associated Press Style Guide, which has issued some pretty stupid decrees over the years — only to reverse itself frequently and without warning. Some compound modifiers are hyphenated, and others aren’t, for no particular rhyme or reason, although the editors seem increasingly allergic to hyphens, as they are to Oxford commas. Maybe they just don’t like punctuation marks. Bigots!

They’re fine with using “alumni” as a plural for" “alumnus,” and “data” is perfectly acceptable as both the plural and, erroneously, the singular form of “datum.” (Well, Data on Star Trek was a single android.) But don’t try writing “stadia” as the plural of “stadium.” Or “aquaria” as the plural of “aquarium.” Just add the “s” instead, because this is Merica, and Latin is a dead language, unless you’re a doctor or a scientist. (Those people are just stupid, right? We live in the 21st century! Carpe diem!)

Authors and their editors, by contrast, are adamant that the Oxford comma must be employed, ostensibly to avoid confusion. It doesn’t bother them that dropping that final comma would cause zero confusion in the vast majority of cases. I suspect they just want to establish themselves as superior to those lowbrow journalists by employing this flourish as a conceit.

Conflicting instructions

Point of order: Mark Twain was a journalist before he was a novelist. So were Charles Dickens, and H.G. Wells, and Neil Gaiman, and John Scalzi. So was I.

Yes, you caught me. I did want an excuse to put myself in that elite company, but it is true: I spent 30 years as a journalist and I’ve written 30 books, so I’ve been in both camps. Newspaper editors have demanded that I omit the Oxford comma, and literary editors have demanded I use it. Some bloggers insist on it; others resist it. And they all make it seem more important than climate change or homelessness or the fact that a whole bunch of species went extinct last year.

No one seems to like my idea: Use it where it’s needed to avoid confusion, and omit it otherwise. That would require people to actually think for themselves, which is probably asking too much in this era of knee-jerk tribalism, Trumpism and identity politics. See? You don’t need a comma between “Trumpism” and “identity politics” to avoid confusion. Trumpism and identity politics cause enough confusion all on their own.

I admit, internal consistency is important, but can’t we have external consistency, too?

Of course not. That would require one side to give in, and heaven forbid journalists would lower themselves to the level of purveyors of fiction (otherwise known as fake news), or that authors should demean themselves by adopting the rules of dying industry that produces disposable print. You might as well ask a Democrat to listen to a Republican, or vice versa.

So I suppose I’ll just have to keep going along with obstinate editors who demand the Oxford comma’s inclusion or exclusion based on nothing more than their own particular bias, which they probably learned from someone else with the same proclivity.

It’s stupid. It’s nonsensical. And it’s the perfect illustration of where we are as a society.

Now, please pass the Pepsi so I can watch Star Trek with a cat in my lap.

Stephen H. Provost is the author of Please Stop Saying That!, a humorous look at jargon and clichés, available on Amazon in paperback and ebook.