The Oxford Comma

So, does that mean that it's a good thing then?
I often use it but I always feel guilty. I don't remember learning about it in grammar lessons.

Yes, of course, your link makes that clear

I was very grateful when Absent introduced me to the Oxford comma, shortly after I joined Gransnet

So should you use it or not? I didn't go to Oxford....

Well that is just crappy writing of a tweet isn't it. A full stop would have removed the potential for laughing at a their journalistic incompetence.
I would go a long way round the block to avoid putting a comma anywhere near an AND unless circumstances were a lot more constraining than this example.

Oh goody!! This one could run for pages if we weren't all so busy

Oxford University Press uses it in lists of words in dictionaries. I think that's where it comes from. Maybe not OED but certainly in what is fondly known as Noddy (New Oxford Dictionary of English – Oxford's answer to Chambers).

I use it quite often and I did not go to Oxford either. It is useful where the three items (or more) are not absolutely exactly parallel, it make a sort of pause.

I do sometimes look at it and feel guilty, though.

I never feel guilty using it because the most linguistically pedantic person I've ever known, who was one of the Noddy editors, introduced me to it. If she says it's proper, it is.

She wasn't Big Ears, the Big Chief editor, but she was one of the hemi-demi gods.

I was educated in Oxford, but have never heard of it. Perhaps, being a scientist and not particularly interested in grammar, I missed it. I have never used a comma when finishing a list with 'and'. In fact it was drummed into us at school that a comma should never be used.

I like anomalies like this and will happily split infinitives and use the Oxford comma when it suits me, if it makes the sentence read more clearly and represent what I mean. My colons and semi colons sometimes get swapped to suit, too!

This is my first introduction to the Oxford comma. Hello.

shysal, that's why it's a bit of a big deal among pedants. I think we probably all had it drummed into us that it was incorrect to put a comma after penultimate item in a list that's part of a sentence.

Now it's no longer incorrect but pedants do like to argue such fine points as if it mattered

Phew! Just the apostrophe to worry about now

I am with you on this one JessM? Lona that made I

Absolutely NO room for manoeuvre on apostrophes, Lona!

What a finicky lot we can be!

bags am I being thick?
Your OP underlines "after the word and' and then gives an example of a list with a comma before 'and'

I too had it drummed in to my head that a comma before 'and' was a major no,no. But I'm happy to be told otherwise.

I think it means a comma is acceptable if the last thing in the list is actually two or more things which could contain an "and".....

for example -

"Go and stay, up and down, red and blue, and small and large."

I suppose it's all to do with clarity.

No, you're not being thick, nina. I expect it's a typo on my part. Here's a list with the poxford comma:
Today i have imbibed and ingested some dates, some coffee, some bread with butter and marmalade, more coffee, and a flapjack.

Obviously hadn't had enough coffee when I typed the OP

Poxford isn't a typo and neither is the smal i.

Well, the small i was actually but I did see it and couldn't be arsed to change it.

The so-called Oxford comma is appropriate when it helps to clarify the meaning as in:

- Here are flour, butter, eggs and sugar and plans are afoot to make a cake.
- Here are flour, butter, eggs and sugar, and plans are afoot to make a cake

Yes, yes, yes. [irritated noise] mishap makes it perfectly clear. The issue only really arises IMHO where the 'and' is joining two different thoughts, rather than items in a list. I hate, really hate, inadequate commas, used to separate sentences though. I have been known to eliminate job applicants for that ...