“How did Oxford come to own the comma in the first place ?”
They agreed to renounce the use of the tilde and umlaut, and traded two semi-quavers for it in the early years of the twentieth century, in an obscure clause of the Balfour Declaration. Like so many things in history, it seemed like a good idea at the time.
I’ve heard that the umlaut and the goose step march are somehow related...