An Oxford, or serial, comma is the last comma in a list; it goes before the word "and."
Technically, it's grammatically optional in American English.
However, depending on the list you are writing out, omitting it can lead to some confusion.
A Reddit user found what could be the best three sentence arguments in existence for the use of the Oxford comma:
It's likely the book is dedicated to the author's parents, Ayn Rand, and also God — but then again, it could be that the author's parents are named Ayn Rand and God.
UPDATE: The source of the image on Reddit seems to be twitter user @alex_macdonald.
Reached by email, MacDonald told BI that the photo is of a page from Steven Pinker's "The Sense of Style." However, he added, "I have seen all of the sentences before over the years (I don't think he came up with them)."
Join the conversation about this story »
NOW WATCH: The 4 Most Persuasive Words In The English Language
