Board Thread:False Info and Speculative Discussion/@comment-27604892-20160113183401/@comment-27547895-20160119210227

That's all well and good, however, there are situations in which simple rephrasing does not help clarity. In these cases, you must either use the Oxford comma or sacrifice clarity. Why refuse to do something so simple habitually when there will eventually come a time when you must?

I can tell you that the reason the Oxford comma was originally dropped had little to do with proper grammar. As I understand it, and my understanding may be limited, it was dropped in journalism to conserve space in newspapers... and then became preferred by certain circles.

There is little argument that it does anything other than conserve space. The best I have heard so far is it causes hesitation and slows reading. However, I find that if you expect the Oxford comma to be present, the lack of one causes much more hesitation.

Generally.... I wouldn't use what goes into newspapers as a writing standard. *shrug*