Oxford (Comma) Debate: Is the Serial Comma Really Necessary?

By Dave Pezza and Matt DiVenere

Watching Dave Pezza and Matt DiVenere debate in an email chain is like marveling at a couple of old men try to club each other with their canes. Arms and legs flailing madly, dentures flying out of mouths, and no actual damage done owing to the physical infirmity of the contestants. Enjoy their most recent swashbuckling over the beloved Oxford comma.—Daniel Ford

Dave Pezza: Summation of my argument: I use the Oxford comma, or serial comma, because I am not a neo-fascist, white-privileged stooge of the boys' club known as journalism.

Matt DiVenere: The Oxford comma is for lazy writers who are too drunk to not realize they're rambling on and on. Or they just have a blatant disregard for the reader and are arrogant enough to think the reader will figure it out. Don't be lazy and rewrite your sentence.

Dave: That is inaccurate. The serial comma’s use is recommended by almost every major English style guide and non-journalistic based publishing house in the United States. Those who do not use the serial comma feel as though they belong to a long line of prestigious writers and journalists and have such an uncanny affinity for writing that their syntax never errs on the side of confusion. Therefore, their prose needs not that lowest and most plebeian of punctuation: the serial comma. And that is ironic, because most journalistic publications are written at an eighth- to 12th-grade reading level. And that very same comma would be added to any eighth to 12th graders’ paper.

So please, for the love of writing, stop purporting this high-handed, Machiavellian trope of superior writing and the common man’s inability to follow prose otherwise. It is demeaning, and those who think this way are very much in the minority. But I suppose that makes sense, the small minority pretending that it alone knows what is best for the whole.

Matt: Almost everyone thought the earth was flat.

Almost everyone thinks global warming is a myth.

Almost every time someone defends themselves with "almost everyone," they are wrong.

Almost everyone is never everyone. So why must there be a definitive answer here?

I believe that English professors and authors utilize the Ox because writing consecutively lends more toward description. The Ox makes sense for those long-nosed authors who don't have a fear of heights from looking down it so often at journalists.

But the Ox does not lend itself to the journalistic writing style that I call my own. Therefore, I consider to be a writer's shoehorn. If you're too lazy to put your own shoe on, is wearing shoes your biggest issue? And who owns a shoehorn anymore?

And journalists write to a fifth- to eighth-grade level. So ha!

Dave: We are not arguing about scientific facts that can be proven right or wrong based on research and the scientific method. We are talking about a simple, easy, and straightforward convention used the world over to help readers and writers better understand one another. So when everyone agrees that its use is your best bet, you can believe them.

This isn’t the 1920s. You’re not Ernest Hemingway. The current literary form of the English language is pretty set in stone. Sure, the language changes now and again to conform to contemporary trends, but on the whole we’ve figured it out. So your style isn’t anything new, and its complexities and subtle nuances aren’t so amazing that they preclude the use of a comma at the end of a list. Sorry. It doesn’t. And the people who haven broken the mold, like Hemingway, James, Wallace, and Shakespeare, did so because they were masters of the conventional.

You’re not one of these matters, I’m not, and odds are noone reading this is. Sometimes you have to play by the rules and just suck it up. Be happy that you have to eat it on something as inconsequential to daily life as the serial comma.

Matt: I don't think journalists are trying to say they're better than anyone or even that our way is more right than yours. I'm just saying that you need to be open to other ways of doing things.

So I need to follow 100% the way something was created nearly 100 years ago without questioning it or making any changes? Quite a statement to make. Do you still write on rock with a chisel? And exactly how many years away are you from calling music "noise" and yelling at kids to get off your lawn?

Dave: We are talking about a comma that, when used at the end of a list along with all the other commas in said list, unequivocally avoids confusion between each distinct item. Damn, you really are losing a lot of artistic integrity by following that damn rigorous, old school Oxford comma. Damn those old, white bastards for controlling how your unique 2017 art reads.

Please.

And if using the serial comma is 100% following the way we wrote English 100 years ago, then you need to start reading more turn of the century prose, my friend. Change and progress is most importantly about keeping what works and fixing what doesn’t. The serial comma has always worked. It will continue to always work. And not using is akin to a teenage temper tantrum, throwing up that middle finger to the world that just doesn’t understand your art, Kevin! No, we get it. This is how the world works, get over it.

Matt: Let's do a quick sample sentence and let's see how you read it compared to me:

• A stripper, Dave, and Dan all had fun together last night.
• A stripper, Dave and Dan all had fun together last night.

To me, the first sentence says that the strippers' name is Dave. The second sentence says the three of them had fun. 

But the Ox is needed every time right? And I'm the asshole because I think if you just change the sentence around, it'll be easier to read and more concise? Your turn.

Dave: If we are following conventional rules, and we are because we use the Oxford comma, “no comma, however, should separate a noun from a restrictive term of identification,” according to Strunk & White. So when I see this sentence:

• A stripper, Dave, and Dan all had fun together last week.

I know that we are talking about three different people for two reasons: first, the serial comma tells us that there are three people, and, secondly, if Dave were a stripper the sentence would properly read:

• The stripper Dave and Dan all had fun together last week.

Or one would have properly added the parenthetical commas distinguishing Dave as a stripper with which we might not know:

• Dave, a stripper, and Dan all had fun together last week.

But there is no way, if you know your grammar, to confuse a sentence written this way:

• A stripper, Dave, and Dan all had fun together last week.

But a sentence written the following way could, grammar tells us, only have one meaning: ‘a stripper’ is parenthetical information, leading off the sentence that describes Dave, which would make the word ‘all’ very confusing and ill advised:

• A stripper, Dave and Dan all had fun together last night.

Final Statements

Dave: Kids, if you see someone not using the serial comma, call them out on it. Life too short to be wrong all the time. Be right. Take those bastards down a peg!

Matt: My conclusion is simple, clean and concise. Which is a perfect way to simply explain why the Ox is a waste of time that only leads to angry conversations, name calling and oversimplified history lessons. In the end, aren't we writers facing the same existential crisis? That people today do not care for the written word as they have in the past. Instead, today's readers seek out five-second videos, internet memes and gifs? We need to stand together as one united front in that battle.

P.S. Sean Spicer uses the Oxford comma.

What do you think? Is the Oxford comma necessary? Reply in the comments section below, on our Facebook page, or tweet us @WritersBone.

The Boneyard Archives

15 Newsy Treasures I Found at the Newseum

By Daniel Ford

Contributing editor Stephanie Schaefer, photo essayist Cristina Cianci, and I recently traveled to Washington D.C. in search of brunch, books, and booze.

Like dutiful citizens, we also made pilgrimages to the capital city’s monuments and museums. I’ve been a news junkie since birth and a journalist by trade, so the Newseum was at the top of my list of places to visit. From the display of daily newspaper front pages to the exhibit detailing the press reaction to Lincoln’s assassination, the museum didn’t disappoint. 

Best enjoyed with a copy of coffee and a reporter’s notebook in your back pocket, these 15 newsy treasures should bring a smile to anyone with ink-stained hands.

Are You Experienced?

The “Reporting Vietnam” exhibit featured this 1960s outfit worn by guitar great Jimi Hendrix. I’m pretty sure my soul-eyed father would have ranked this on the top of his list had he been with us.

Press Pass

Unlike some of the other national museums in Washington D.C., the Newseum isn’t free. However, I felt I got my money’s worth just by standing close to the credentials journalist David Halberstam used while reporting in Vietnam from 1962 to 1964. Halberstam, who died tragically in a car accident in 2007, wrote some of the most important nonfiction books in U.S. history. His book The Best and the Brightest—a searing, in-depth investigation into the disastrous foreign policy developed toward Vietnam by the Kennedy and Johnson administrations—should be required reading for politicians and citizens alike. The same can be said for The Fifties, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals, and The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War.

Cover Shoot

Cristina made the comment that she wouldn’t want to be the person in charge of hanging up all these newspapers from around the country and the globe. If anyone from the Newseum is reading this, I’m available should that person ever want to take an extended vacation.

Also, there’s a great quote by Daniel P. Moynihan above the display:

“If a person goes to a country and finds their newspapers filled with nothing but good news, there are good men in jail.”

Honest Abe

Lincoln wasn’t portrayed all that well in the press during his time in office, but he was smart enough to recognize the importance of an active, questioning press. I doubt he’d be whining about debate rules because of some “tough” questions…

History of News

According to the Newseum’s website, its News History Gallery “showcases nearly 400 historic newspaper front pages, newsbooks and magazines” from “more than 500 years of news history.” I could have spent a small eternity in this exhibit. 

Here are a few of my favorite front pages:

Captain Hemingway

It wouldn’t be a Writer’s Bone post without some mention of Ernest Hemingway. Above are his credentials during World War II. It’s worth noting that Hemingway once commandeered a hotel in France after the Allies marched into Paris. Needless to say, alcohol was served liberally. 

9/11

I remember buying all of the New York City newspapers the day after Sept. 11. I read most of The New York Times in the hallway of my high school before the first bell rang. I recall thinking that the words failed to capture the violence, tragedy, and sorrow featured in the graphic photographs on every page. Seeing all of the headlines from that day in one place gave me goose bumps and reminded me how essential media was in uniting the country in the face of that awful attack.

“Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever.”

The above is a bronze casting of Martin Luther King Jr.’s jail cell door in Birmingham, Ala. Behind this door he wrote his famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which eloquently explained his civil disobedience doctrine. I reread the letter for the first time in a number of years while writing this post and it still holds truths this generation should embrace, including one of my favorite lines:

Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

Journalist Memorial

One of the more haunting aspects of this memorial commemorating journalists who have been killed reporting the news is the empty space above the photograph display. We remain a world at war and press freedom is constantly under attack from unenlightened and paranoid forces. Future deaths in the pursuit of truth are inevitable. Blaming the media has always been en vogue (and at times deserved), however, it’s grossly unfair and irresponsible for leaders of any nation to question the central role the press has in shaping an informed, engaged citizenship. Now, whenever I hear politicians or pundits rant against the “morals” and “ethics” of today’s media, I’ll think of this memorial and be reminded that the freedom to type these words doesn’t come cheap.

The Writer’s Bone News Team

I wandered away from Stephanie and Cristina toward the end of our visit and ended up on the news thanks to one of the Newseum’s staff members. Jean, whose last name I didn’t catch, led me over to The Interactive Newsroom, put a microphone in my hand, and told me to read the script. He said improvising was allowed if I felt the need. Of course, I chose a news scenario from the Civil War and thought I nailed it.

Jean was less than impressed. He complimented my voice, but said I needed more energy and charisma (and probably a shave). So he added Stephanie! She didn’t allow me to post the video, but here’s an image:

Let’s just say Jean had no complaints about that broadcast thanks to Stephanie’s bubbly personality and friendly smile.

For more posts from The Boneyard, check out our full archive.

The Boneyard: Are Journalists Really an Endangered Species?

By Daniel Ford

Earlier this week, Poynter reported that newspaper reporters landed on the annual list of endangered jobs for the second year in a row. Others on the list included meter readers, farmers, and mail careers (who are expected to lose 28 percent of their workforce by 2022).

This is not a good list to be on, obviously. It’s also not great that journalists found themselves at the very bottom of a list of the 200 worst jobs in the United States. My BS in Journalism wept.

So is being a journalist really that bad? Has the Internet and television killed the ink-stained newspaper star? I reached out to some of my favorite journos on Twitter to discuss the issues facing the industry and what the future might look like.

Daniel Ford: How’s everybody feeling about being on the endangered species list?

Matt DiVenere: The worst part? Most journalists left make the public hope it's a quick death.

Daniel: Does Anderson Cooper's performance during the Democratic debate on Tuesday (and Meghan Kelly’s during the first Republican debate) offer a glimmer of hope?

Lindsey Wojcik: You're talking two different industries now. Broadcast is a different ballgame. Print will not fully become extinct but entering the market with that emphasis will.

Matt: Absolutely. Local, small-market newspapers will outlast national papers. You can get national news anywhere. Local news, not so much.

Melissa Rose Bernardo (managing editor of JCK magazine): Let's hope so! (Kind of like small business versus big box retail.)

Daniel: I don't necessarily think they are all that different now. Journalist's number one job is asking tough, relevant questions to find truth.

Lindsey: I think there's more of a celebrity cache in broadcast. At least with networks.

Daniel: But wasn't there the same cache with print journalists in 1960s and 1970s?

Lindsey: Celebrity culture was nothing like it is today.

Daniel: I wouldn't tell that to William Randolph Hearst!

Matt: Television and print are two completely different worlds, especially today.

Daniel: Would we lose quality journalism if we start relying more on local newspapers? Local newspapers don’t have the budget or staff to tackle larger issues. Wouldn’t we miss out on some of the necessary investigative journalism performed by national papers? We’re already seeing it with major news organizations cutting back. Who ends up being the watchdog?

Matt: True, but local journalists have a bit more of a stake in local issues with more access.

Daniel: Are journos really going to school to write for their local paper?

Matt: A good journalist shouldn't be impacted by audience or market size.

Daniel: Who are these local writers aspiring to be? What's the standard?

Matt: It's more important for local writers to stand out than to aspire to be someone.

Daniel: But isn't the problem that standing out today means being more of an entertainer?

Matt: From a TV perspective, yes. But writers who go for the recognition get labeled as such. Standing out doesn't have to be for being an entertainer. Passion will always trump. Every journalist is different. Mimicking should be looked at as a no-no.

Daniel: So how do we cultivate good journalists? How do we avoid extinction?

Lindsey: There are too many problems to solve in a single Twitter thread.

To be continued…

To add to the discussion, comment below, weigh in on our Facebook page, or tweet us @WritersBone. For more posts from The Boneyard, check out our full archive.

The Boneyard: Our Best Moments as Writers

Daniel Ford and Sean Tuohy gave you their best moments as writers when they first founded Writer’s Bone. They asked the Writer’s Bone crew what their favorite moment was and here’s what they came up with:

Stephanie Schaefer: In college, my favorite moments as a writer were when I received papers with relatively little red mark-ups and that ever-so-satisfying “A” (or A-) on top–a rare fete for an English major. However, as I made my way into the real world, I realized that this subjective art doesn’t necessarily need A+ approval from a teacher or editor to be qualified as something you’re proud of.

Although sitting face to face with Shaquille O’Neal and firing questions at him was a badass moment in my journalism career thus far, one of my most gratifying accomplishments as a writer was crafting a story with true meaning behind it. I had the opportunity to interview a 16-year-old girl who survived cancer and found power in creativity. She remained positive and upbeat throughout the entire interview, and truly appreciated the chance to tell her story. After that interview, I knew that I wanted to use my skills to share inspiring narratives.

Lindsey Wojcik: "New York Brought Down to Size." That headline accompanied by an inaccurate composition of the New York City skyline donned the cover of my college's student newspaper my sophomore year. It was not the first headline with my name beneath it—I had experienced that euphoric moment of seeing my work published for the first time months before—but without that simple cover line, as well as the content of the story inside, I may not be where I am today.

I just was an eager contributing reporter hoping to obtain a few writing samples for my portfolio when, at a weekly writer's meeting, the features editor pitched an idea for a series of stories that would profile thriving cities a 20-something might consider moving to after college graduation. With my heart set on my own post-collegiate life in New York City, I knew I could deliver exactly what the editor wanted. I took the assignment.

Two weeks later—after interviewing a New York City-based realtor, a career development counselor at NYU, and three of my own school's alumni (former metro-Detroiters) that lived in the city—I turned in a comprehensive guide on where to live, work, eat and play in New York City after college. I was proud of it, but I never expected it would grace the cover.

The final product gained the attention of key editors and the newspaper's faculty advisor, who deemed it cover worthy. When the features editor passed along the news that it would, in fact, be the cover story, I could not remove myself from the newsroom. I only left to attend class, but returned long after other contributing writers left—determined to see the story come to life on the page and cover.

I craved camaraderie from the editors and advisor, so there I sat, deskless, shooting the shit with other staff members and pitching ideas, so I could contribute more. Each one of them listened intently and encouraged me to write as much as possible.

A year later, I would become the newspaper's editor in chief. And not long after graduation, I would finally be able to call myself a New Yorker. "New York Brought Down to Size" gave me the confidence and determination to achieve both.

David Pezza: My best moment as a writer is writing a short story that I haven't finished yet that I know will be crazy cool, but I need time to flesh it out…like years…

Also, one my best moments as a writer happened in a creative writing class at Providence College. The story, and the line about a redheaded woman I included in a previous post, got a huge response from the class. One kid, who was a nice and a cool dude (so someone I respected in the class), said about it, "Wish that I could write like that someday."

Emili Vesilind: It's always the same moment for me: that point in the writing process when the reporting has been jotted down, the lead has been crafted, and it's time to sort out and finesse the rest of the story. The hard part is over!

Elizabeth Nicklis: Getting the Principal’s Award in the first grade for writing. It was the first time I got an award for writing and you only get awards once in a while.

For posts from The Boneyard, check out our full archive.