Among literary devices, one of my favorites is polysyndeton. Despite its fancy name this is a plain device and easy to use. Simply repeat “and” after every word in a list. Polysyndeton provides quick and simple emphasis.
“While driving through a wildlife preserve in Oklahoma I spied llamas and zebras and ostriches and emus and water buffalo. However, I saw no wildlife native to the state.”
Isn’t it pretentious to use a lengthy Latin term for a literary device that imitates the way a child speaks? Not at all. No commas were used in my list. But, the repetition of “and” made the meaning clear. Such clarity cannot be attributed to the Oxford comma. This punctuation mark, which I prefer to call the serial comma, gained its infamy in a legal case. The lack of a comma between the last items in a list dealing with overtime payments for delivery drivers cost a dairy in Maine five million dollars. 1
Some writers believe such vast sums of money to be of the utmost importance. They don’t want anyone to challenge the sanctity of the Oxford comma. But, using the serial comma doesn’t always work. I found that out when I asked for feedback on a story. The main character, a recent college graduate, reflected on his three day visit to the immense city of Paris in which he meets three women. He never caught the name of the first one, but he knew her intended career, to sing in the opera. By the second day he was a bit wiser and learned more about the second and third young ladies when conversing with them. So, the sentence states, “He compared the stunning opera singer, Brigitte, and Tova.”
Some readers assumed Brigitte was synonymous with the want-to-be opera singer. The commas around her name indicated an appositive. Using the serial comma to separate the last two items in the list didn’t make the meaning clear but muddled it. If I leave out the comma after Brigitte, it becomes obvious that the young man is weighing the attributes of three different people. The ardent Oxford comma aficionado would say, “You must reword your list so that the comma works.” I could have used “and” between each woman he considered because polysyndeton works where the Oxford comma fails. “He compared the stunning opera singer and Brigitte and Tova.” No comma is needed.
Why is preference for the Oxford comma so proudly proclaimed? Evidently it reveals a certain kind of personality. Claiming affinity for the Oxford comma has been noted on dating sites as a way to show erudite sophistication (especially on Tinder).2 On the other hand, people on Reddit find championing a comma a bit pretentious. I find people who use a specific type of comma as a way to judge other people’s value as a way to turn a useful punctuation mark into a ridiculous obsession.
What would others think about me if I boldly described myself as polysyndeton proponent?
1 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us/oxford-comma-maine.html
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