In the flash animation strip in my header, you can see mention (in animated red pen) of the “OXFORD COMMA”, the last comma in any series of items in a sentence. Over time, use of this final comma has lost favor in the publishing world, starting with newsprinters (notorious for sparing characters to save space) and spreading to other journalistic publications.

But the trend isn’t over. In fact, the Oxford comma just lost some more ground–on its home turf.

A University of Oxford Writing and Style Guide has decided that writers should, “as a general rule,” avoid using the Oxford comma. Will you miss the good old fashioned serial comma?

I might–if only as a ghost habit. It’s one of those things that were drilled into us; when I read lists I have an aching need to add that last soft-pause between the final two items. When I don’t see the comma there, the separation value bears some inequality in my grammatical lens. I have, however, learned to deal with my delusion thanks to keeping the company of minimalist editors (newsprint and mag, especially) who’ve been keen on dropping the Oxford for decades.

But it’s not altogether dead:

Here’s an explanation from the style guide: “…[w]rite ‘a, b and c’ not ‘a, b, and c’. But when a comma would assist in the meaning of the sentence or helps to resolve ambiguity, it can be used – especially where one of the items in the list is already joined by ‘and’ [for example]: They had a choice between croissants, bacon and eggs, and muesli.”

You may hear a few stuffy old-school manuscript editors hem, haw, and howl hem, haw and howl over this one. The stuffiest of those will probably continue adding their Oxfords in rebellion.

Check out the full article here on MediaBistro.com’s Galleycat

When I was eleven—months before Netscape Navigator and almost a year before Microsoft Internet Explorer were released—I would have my first experience in data communication using a terminal system to connect to regional Bulletin Board Systems via modem. A month later, my mother would get the single largest phone bill she’d ever seen. At nearly $400, this bill would be the cause of the only severe grounding I’d ever gotten as a kid.

Punching those alien commands into the terminal system, listening to that horrible grating modem connection and navigating through simple line-by-line text menus, did I have any idea it would lead to all of this?

Not a chance. I didn’t think about what it might become. I only knew that I was punching commands I didn’t entirely understand into the darkness, and I was getting a response. I wanted to know more about what that meant. I wanted to know more about what this machine communication was. I was so amazed at the fact that my computer dialed a phone—and another machine answered my call. I was interacting with machines miles away, bringing information from those machines to the screen in front of my eyes. It was mind-blowing.

The most amazing part of all this is being twenty-seven and realizing that I’m already telling stories like an old man. The way I describe this experience in communication—it’s with the awe that only a member of the last generation can have.

Just fifteen years, and already we take SO MUCH DATA for granted.

For every kid that I bump into who is wandering the media industry looking for an entrance that closed some time ago, I come across another who is a bundle of ideas, energy and technological mastery. The next wave is not just knocking on doors, but seeking to knock them down.

Hear, hear, Mr. Carr. This twenty-something could not agree more.