The Oxford Comma

[Scott5114]

The average person does not write research papers in between going to the grocery store and picking up the kids from soccer practice, though. They consume content from websites and through various forms of social media.
In a work environment, it will be highly dependent on the position as to whether you will be using a word processor or not. In one of my jobs, we do not even have an office suite of any kind installed on most of the computers.

In state government here the MS Office package is part of the standard image, and that is over 100,000 employees.

How many college students are there in the U.S.?  In 2017, there were 14.56 million college students in the U.S. enrolled in public colleges and 5.1 million students enrolled in private colleges. (statista dot com)

This is getting tedious.  The fact of that matter is that massive amounts of written communication goes on every day that never touches a browser or needs HTML.

The same site shows 220.5 million U.S. Facebook users.

The fact of that matter is that even more massive amounts of written communication goes on every day that touches a browser or needs HTML.

[Beltway]

The same site shows 220.5 million U.S. Facebook users.
The fact of that matter is that even more massive amounts of written communication goes on every day that touches a browser or needs HTML.

The PDF documents posted to websites do not need HTML themselves.

And, oh, there are 1.2 billion Microsoft Office users.

[Scott5114]

There are 2.45 billion users of Facebook worldwide.

[Beltway]

So what?  Given the number of documents produced that do not involve HTML, that language never will dictate how the English language is used for everybody.

[Scott5114]

The so what is that you can hit space bar as much as you want, and if you do it in a way that reaches the largest audiences, your readers will see exactly one space between your sentences no matter how much you press.

Merry Christmas!

[Beltway]

The so what is that you can hit space bar as much as you want, and if you do it in a way that reaches the largest audiences, your readers will see exactly one space between your sentences no matter how much you press.

Not if they download a PDF document. 

Besides, you don't hit the whole internet when you post something, probably 99% of all posters/publishers hit a relative handful.

[Scott5114]

Who the hell is downloading all these PDFs? Is there some news site that posts their entire output as a series of PDFs? Do your family members email you PDF updates of what their kids are doing?

Do you even exist in the real world?

[Beltway]

Who the hell is downloading all these PDFs? Is there some news site that posts their entire output as a series of PDFs? Do your family members email you PDF updates of what their kids are doing?
Do you even exist in the real world?

Have you ever worked in a work environment that uses computers that uses documents? 

You want to talk about a toy like social media.

[hotdogPi]

Workplaces are important. However, I would use only one space after a period even in a word processor.

Or is that a full stop?

[DaBigE]

Who the hell is downloading all these PDFs? Is there some news site that posts their entire output as a series of PDFs? Do your family members email you PDF updates of what their kids are doing?
Do you even exist in the real world?

Have you ever worked in a work environment that uses computers that uses documents? 

You want to talk about a toy like social media.

You're hyper focused on the office environment. For most people, that doesn't even make up half of their day. Other than a bank statement or maybe an invoice, I can't recall the last time I downloaded a PDF outside of work. There's much more to the electronic world than social media. Does Amazon have a PDF catalog out there that I don't know about?

[MNHighwayMan]

You're hyper focused on the office environment. For most people, that doesn't even make up half of their day. Other than a bank statement or maybe an invoice, I can't recall the last time I downloaded a PDF outside of work. There's much more to the electronic world than social media. Does Amazon have a PDF catalog out there that I don't know about?

I mean, I imagine that the members of this forum use PDFs more often than the average computer user, given that a lot of DOT documents come in that format. But otherwise, I have to agree with you and Scott5114 about this. It just isn't what the average computer user does or uses.

[kphoger]

The average person does not write research papers in between going to the grocery store and picking up the kids from soccer practice, though. They consume content from websites and through various forms of social media.

The average person hardly ever posts more than one sentence at a time on social media.  No decision to make.

This was a sub-discussion about why a person might use two spaces, not about how many people might see two spaces.  I'd say that hardly anyone has two personal protocols for spacing between sentences–one space for files that will be HTML-processed and two spaces for other files.  Rather, pretty much every person will either type one space in every application or two spaces in every application.  For those of us prefer double-space, there is zero downside except for slightly bigger HTML file sizes:  in some applications, the double space is retained while, in others, it is stripped.

I don't care how many people use Facebook vs how many people use MS Word.  The obvious fact is that a lot of people use each of them.

Besides which...  The majority of my multi-sentence communication (other than this forum) happens via work e-mail.  We use MS Outlook, which does not strip the extra space when I send it.

[Beltway]

You're hyper focused on the office environment. For most people, that doesn't even make up half of their day. Other than a bank statement or maybe an invoice, I can't recall the last time I downloaded a PDF outside of work. There's much more to the electronic world than social media. Does Amazon have a PDF catalog out there that I don't know about?

I mean, I imagine that the members of this forum use PDFs more often than the average computer user, given that a lot of DOT documents come in that format. But otherwise, I have to agree with you and Scott5114 about this. It just isn't what the average computer user does or uses.

Yeahbut ... I am not trying to dictate whether you use one space or two spaces.

Simply saying that there are ample formal reasons to use two spaces if you choose.

FWIW, I prepared 8 papers in Word for a graduate college class that I have taken this Fall, and converted them to PDF to submit (all assignments are submitted online).  The school is in agreement with the two-space usage.

[paulthemapguy]

You know, we DO have a separate thread in "Off-Topic" called "minor things that bother you."  Maybe take discussion of that ilk over there.

[J N Winkler]

I've actually come here from Scott5411's Facebook thread.

To answer the OP:  yes, I use the Oxford comma.

And to contribute my own two cents' worth on the single-space/double-space controversy:  I use two spaces after periods and colons because that is what I was taught to do.  I still prefer it for ease of seeing sentence breaks when reading text in a monospaced font, such as in Notepad.  I tend to think people who attempt to stamp out two spaces, such as the college professors mentioned upthread, are would-be Torquemadas.  I am no longer in a position where I need to submit to their dictates, but if I were, I would almost certainly use a sed script to enforce compliance with their requirements rather than retraining myself.  Altering habits formed as part of the process of learning to touch-type is only slightly less troublesome than learning the Dvorak keyboard.

As for the prevalence of written text being rendered in HTML to the near-exclusion of all other file formats, I'd note that although I have adopted LaTeX as my preferred platform for my own word processing needs, I still frequently use Word and LibreOffice (as required) to handle files others send to me.  LaTeX itself differentiates between single space and double space when it sets the final copy.

[Brandon]

Yes, I use the Oxford comma; otherwise, one might misread a set of items I'm placing together, i.e.
Roads, signs, lights, and signals vs.
Roads, signs, lights and signals vs.
Roads, signs, and lights and signals.
The comma makes the differences obvious, IMHO.
Let's eat grandma, and
Let's eat, grandma.

As for spaces after a period, I use two after a sentence, one after an abbreviation, to make the differences between a sentence and an abbreviation obvious at a glance, i.e.
Mr. Elkins wrote a paragraph about Roadfan, Inc.  Roadfan, Inc. is a company based in Ohio.

I also only use one space after a colon for the same reason.  There's no need for two spaces when a colon is used as a spacer to further define what is discussed (maybe I see the colon in too many legal descriptions of properties), but it is described as follows: with one space after it.

[1995hoo]

"Let's eat[,] Grandma"  is not an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue.

[Beltway]

The COBOL programmer inside of me tends to be really fussy about grammar and syntax!

That includes how periods and commas are utilized.

[Beltway]

I also only use one space after a colon for the same reason.  There's no need for two spaces when a colon is used as a spacer to further define what is discussed (maybe I see the colon in too many legal descriptions of properties), but it is described as follows: with one space after it.

I never really have liked to use colons, for some reason. 

I would typically use two dashes or a long dash.

I am quite liberal in my use of commas and semicolons, though.

[kphoger]

I've long used two spaces after a colon, and I recently started using two spaces after a semicolon as well.  The reason is that the what comes after the punctuation very often can stand alone as its own sentence (an independent clause) and, as such, it makes sense to me that I should separate it as if it were its own sentence.  I also think that, if I'm using a more "substantial" punctuation mark than a mere comma, then I might as well use more substantial spacing as well.

[CtrlAltDel]

"Let's eat[,] Grandma"  is not an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue.

Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:

Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.

[Rothman]

"Let's eat[,] Grandma"  is not an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue.

Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:

Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.

Nah.

[CtrlAltDel]

“Let’s eat[,] Grandma” is not an Oxford comma issue. It’s a direct address issue.

Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:

Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.

Nah.

Yes, actually, at least in Chicago style. The key bit is: "If a comma is used to set off the abbreviation, a second comma is normally required in the middle of a sentence."

[Rothman]

"Let's eat[,] Grandma"  is not an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue.

Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:

Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.

Nah.

Yes, actually, at least in Chicago style. The key bit is: "The trick in running text is that if you use one comma, you must use two."

So, nah.  One style does not dictate all.

[CtrlAltDel]

“Let’s eat[,] Grandma” is not an Oxford comma issue. It’s a direct address issue.

Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:

Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.

Nah.

Yes, actually, at least in Chicago style. The key bit is: "The trick in running text is that if you use one comma, you must use two."

So, nah.  One style does not dictate all.

Of course not. This was just an example. The point is that the usage in question is well attested and similar to the commas required in, say:

Martin Luther King, Jr., was a prominent civil rights leader.
December 9, 2019, was a Monday.
Wichita, Kansas, is not the capital of Ohio.