The proper use of punctuation is an increasingly rare and embattled art in the shrinking global world. The Oxford comma stands as the most prevalent example of disagreements between U.S. English and UK English speakers. The comma itself, though, comes with baggage.
I once had a well-educated, UK-based friend inquire about why I placed commas between adjectives in series when the adjectives all modified the same noun. This lovely e-mail subject line, culled from my bulk folder at Yahoo!, is the perfect illustration:
Get A Huge Pornstar Penis
Now…I know they mean a huge penis but without the comma they’ve got me thinking about obese male pornstars. Not really fun thoughts for me either way.
Well-educated? Like Sheila Ferguson, I have three degrees, baby. That’s better than well-educated.
The Oxford comma is specifically the comma between the penultimate and ultimate items in a list: “red, white, and blue”. It’s entirely unnecessary because the job of the comma in a list is to take the place of “and”. So, Americans are taught the equivalent of red, white and and blue.
The issue I have with the adjectival comma you highlighted above is entirely different. It’s to do with coherence of thought. See, I am your genius, UK-based friend because I am both your genius friend and I am UK-based. These are mutually exclusive. But a huge pornstar penis doesn’t need commas because it’s all linked into the one, uh, package. You know, it’s a pornstar penis that is huge. The huge qualifies “pornstar penis” not just “pornstar” or “penis” on their own.
You know, I never thought I’d see the day when I typed “The huge qualifies ‘pornstar penis’ “
Woodstock!
You are the BEST. No really, you are the BEST!
STB