To go back to a topic that was covered much earlier in the thread, did anyone else see
this BBC report? I thought that, by phrasing it in terms of whether the Oxford comma should or should not be used as a matter of course, they entirely missed the point of what Sir Philip was probably saying.
The power of the Oxford comma lies in using it appropriately, where it helps understanding, and not routinely. So neither of the two viewpoints that the BBC report pitches against each other is either correct, or even useful. Rather, we should ask what is meant by:
"Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations."
Correct use of commas will allow the words to be comprehended more quickly. Clearly there is a list of three items, and I believe that the writers mean us to associate "all nations" with "friendship" in particular. Thus, whilst they'd be happy for everyone else to have peace and prosperity as well, they don't really mean:
"Peace with all nations, prosperity with all nations and friendship with all nations" - not least because "prosperity with" is not really a meaningful expression, so suggesting it makes the phrase hard to comprehend.
To allow me to comprehend that as easily as possible in the 0.5 nanoseconds that I'm prepared to analyse to parsing the back of a 50p coin, an Oxford comma would indeed help
in this instance:
"Peace, prosperity, and friendship with all nations."
But the idea that one should routinely use it is nonsense. We might also talk about playing:
"Cricket, rugby, and football with all nations" - but that would mean that we played the first two only amongst ourselves. The trick lies in using it at the right times.
Sadly, though, this little diatribe of mine is a much less interesting read than the BBC report, however much I might believe that it's more useful...