My Microsoft account at work made me re-think this because it is pushing me to add more commas that I usually do.

I’m of two minds here. On one hand, punctuation is for clarity. If a sentence is clear without additional hyphens or commas, you could argue that they are not needed. For example:

I want ice cream too. (Acceptable in informal writing.)

I want ice cream, too. (Expected in formal writing.)

I want to eat, mom. (Always a good idea.) I want to eat mom. (Or the police could be involved.)

Or with hyphens when putting two adjectives before a noun, as with: “a well-known author” or “a high-speed chase.” With both of these, leaving out the hyphen would not change the meaning or cause confusion.

However, with “high-school students” vs “high school students” the police could get involved again over omitting the hyphen.

I tend toward leaving it out unless it improves clarity or changes meaning.

Now for the Oxford comma. Have we all seen the memes?

However you feel about strippers, is would probably be less confusing if “the strippers, Kennedy, and Stalin” suddenly arrived, than it would be if “the strippers, Kennedy and Stalin” arrived.

Not using the Oxford comma can make the phrase ambiguous, but when it doesn’t become ambiguous, as with, “Get me the carrots, potatoes and celery”, we can really leave it out without problems.

I go back and forth on these. Even the most careful writers and editors can fail to see the ambiguity in their phrases, so choosing to always include the punctuation is a good way to go. Then again, if you feel confident and want to remove the clutter, I can respect that too. If you have a style guide you must follow, do that, if not, then stay consistent with whatever you choose.

Thoughts? Or more fun examples are welcome.