“I found myself surrounded by giant trees, massive ferns and strange mushrooms.”
If this line were to be spoken aloud, the last two subjects would not have a pause between them. It’s a picky me thing, to be honest. I’m extremely obsessive about grammar.
I went to dinner with two idiots, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
Vs
I went to dinner with two idiots, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden.
If you intend for the reader to think you went to dinner with two people, treating the Oxford comma as mandatory is going to add ambiguity at best and change the meaning at worst.
Can you describe a situation where an Oxford comma would be detrimental to a sentence?
Mostly in script. Specifically with adjectives.
“I found myself surrounded by giant trees, massive ferns and strange mushrooms.”
If this line were to be spoken aloud, the last two subjects would not have a pause between them. It’s a picky me thing, to be honest. I’m extremely obsessive about grammar.
It sounds wrong without the comma
When it changes the meaning.
Vs
If you intend for the reader to think you went to dinner with two people, treating the Oxford comma as mandatory is going to add ambiguity at best and change the meaning at worst.