“Who gives a f*ck about the Oxford comma?” the band Vampire Weekend asks.

I do, teachers do, and you should too.

Frequently in the English language, seemingly illogical grammatical rules can be frustrating. This trend is most noticeably exemplified in the commonly-debated issue of the Oxford comma. Does this single punctuation mark warrant such disagreement?

Yes.

The Oxford comma is the optional comma that comes before the ‘and’ in the last term of a list. For example, in the sentence “Cleopatra, Wes Anderson, and Ernest Hemingway,” the Oxford comma follows ‘Wes Anderson.’

The Oxford comma is a necessity in modern language. Opposers of it are ignorant heathens, unable to keep up with fluid grammar rules. I’m looking at you, AP (Associated Press) Style Guide (the primitive standard for journalistic writing which prohibits the use of Oxford commas). The AP’s unwillingness to accept the Oxford comma is not only representative of its failure to adapt to modern speech patterns, it also shows its continuous furthering of the rapid downfall of humanity. The fact that it has not yet been integrated into everyday usage and made a staple of the English language is, frankly, an embarrassment to mankind and an atrocity comparable to the Permian extinction.

Lack of an Oxford comma immediately makes a block of text equally as unreliable as one that has been written in Comic Sans, invalidating all hope of being taken seriously and destroying the author’s credibility indefinitely. Outright refusal to use it signifies one’s descent into hell.

Absence of this comma leads to unnecessary ambiguity when the alternative would be so much simpler. This is particularly apparent when looking at lists containing terms that could be misconstrued as appositive phrases. For example, let’s look at the phrase “…my parents, Chris Pratt and God.” The only benefit of not using the Oxford comma in this case would be that people might consider you a godly being because they incorrectly assumed that you are the lovechild of Chris Pratt and God. But lies such as these simply won’t cut it. Fortunately, the Oxford comma immediately clarifies the issue. It could be argued that the solution would be to simply reorder the terms and say, “…God, my parents and Chris Pratt.” But it is far easier to just add in another comma. Why should this hypothetical journalist be forced to reorder his or her sentence simply to match the AP Style Guide’s outdated ban on the Oxford comma?

Take this problematic headline as an example: “World leaders at Mandela tribute, Obama-Castro handshake and same-sex marriage date set.” Sorry, Michelle, but from this headline it seems that Barack is utilizing the recent legalization of gay marriage and the lift on Cuba’s embargo to elope with Castro. But wait! With the addition of an Oxford comma, all becomes clear. “World leaders at Mandela tribute, Obama-Castro handshake, and same-sex marriage date set.” Thank you, Oxford comma. You’ve saved us from an international scandal yet again.