Grammar Knows Best

"Grammar's not your Grandma, it's your grammar!" This little ditty introduced a short song and animation demonstrating the proper use of some part of speech. And many of us listened because, in the days before cable, we had little choice but to wait through “Grammar Rock” for the next segment of our favorite cartoon.

Sadly, Grammar Rock never shared the screen with Punctuation Rock. And so, no one ever sang the praises of the Oxford comma, that little punctuation mark before the word "and" at the end of a list:

Grammar Rock taught the use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other parts of speech.

Textbooks advise that the Oxford comma is optional but recommended. Sometimes, they say, it will be necessary for clarity. I submit the following line as corroborating evidence:

"The market also provides an array of fresh produce, seafood swimming in tanks and baked goods."
-- credited to Cecilia Chan at the Arizona Republic, as posted on AZCentral.com

One stroke of the pen, or lack thereof, completely changes the meaning of this sentence. It could have described a market that sells such items as produce, seafood, and baked goods. Instead its words define “fresh produce” as “seafood.” And apparently we should expect to find this produce/seafood swimming not only in tanks, but also in baked goods.

Even Grammar knows that seafood is not produce. And I'm sure that Grandma will agree that nothing good can happen when seafood swims in baked goods.