Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 98 posts

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#51

Post by rpmisms »

bcatanzaro wrote: post #42

The commas in the second Amendment and their meaning are probably worth Trillions of dollars. When you think of all the private arms and all the costs of gun violence in the US over the years which hinge on the individual right to bear arms, when punctuation in the second amendment can lead people to read the text as only holding a right to bear arms within a well-regulated Militia. Turns out that the commas weren’t…

Textualists might be able to make your argument. Any constitutional scholar worth their salt could not.

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#52

Post by Asooka »

seanwilson wrote: post #7

> “The next day, I enjoyed pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce over rice, broccoli salad and bread pudding with chocolate sauce.” A comma after “broccoli salad” would have cleared the table before dessert. I think if you write a sentence that's highly dependent on the reader paying careful attention to where an easy-to-miss comma is, you assume all readers know what Oxford commas are, and the sentence generates a…

My two cents against the use of the Oxford comma would be that all of Europe's languages are written without it. Surely if neither German, nor Spanish, nor Finnish, nor Lithuanian, nor Hungarian, nor Bulgarian - if none of them need the Oxford comma, English probably doesn't either.

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#53

Post by skulk »

Asooka wrote: post #50
jandrese wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that people would have interpreted that amendment the way they wanted to regardless of comma placement. They already blind themselves to the "well regulated militia" wording entirely, so ignoring an extra comma or two makes little difference.

The meaning seems obvious. A well regulated militia is required for the security of a free state. Therefore, people's freedom to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It declares an already existing freedom to keep and bear arms (as IIRC nothing on the federal level forbade it), and forbids its infringement by the state, with the goal of keeping the population familiar with the operation of firearms for the bene…

That explanation you linked is a whole lot of words, and after reading it I am less sure of what I thought the Second Amendment means than ever. Its meaning is anything but obvious.

I say this because there is nothing about self-defense in the text of the Second Amendment, and yet the SCOTUS has held that self-defense is one of the rights that cannot be infringed. It's not at all obvious how a statement about the necessity of a well-regulated militia has anything to do with personal self-defense with a handgun. I can see a world where the DC handgun ban was upheld by the SCOTUS because long guns (for the well-regulated militia) were still available and personal self-defense isn't covered under the wording of 2A. Of course, if you bring the zeitgeist into view this seems absurd, but in a vacuum where the 2A is the only reference it makes logical sense.

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#54

Post by seanwilson »

ohazi wrote: post #21
seanwilson wrote: post #7

> “The next day, I enjoyed pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce over rice, broccoli salad and bread pudding with chocolate sauce.” A comma after “broccoli salad” would have cleared the table before dessert. I think if you write a sentence that's highly dependent on the reader paying careful attention to where an easy-to-miss comma is, you assume all readers know what Oxford commas are, and the sentence generates a…

> “The next day, I enjoyed pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce over rice and broccoli salad, followed by bread pudding with chocolate sauce.” This just moves the ambiguity. Is the tomato sauce over rice, with a side of broccoli salad? Or is the sauce over [rice and broccoli salad]? In this case "rice and broccoli salad" doesn't really sound like a dish, but why the fuck wouldn't you just use a tiny piece of synta…

How does a comma alone fix the sentence I quoted though? It could then be read as the tomato sauce going over the bread pudding. I think if you really want super clear, restructure the sentence further.

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#55

Post by usui »

blockwriter wrote: post #12
seanwilson wrote: post #7

> “The next day, I enjoyed pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce over rice, broccoli salad and bread pudding with chocolate sauce.” A comma after “broccoli salad” would have cleared the table before dessert. I think if you write a sentence that's highly dependent on the reader paying careful attention to where an easy-to-miss comma is, you assume all readers know what Oxford commas are, and the sentence generates a…

This is likely just me, but I find sentences where the independent clause is bookended by an introductory and dependent clause to be inelegant. I never write them.

Can you give an example?

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#56

Post by sixothree »

intrasight wrote: post #14
seanwilson wrote: post #7

> “The next day, I enjoyed pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce over rice, broccoli salad and bread pudding with chocolate sauce.” A comma after “broccoli salad” would have cleared the table before dessert. I think if you write a sentence that's highly dependent on the reader paying careful attention to where an easy-to-miss comma is, you assume all readers know what Oxford commas are, and the sentence generates a…

I'm a fan of hyphens: "...oysters with a tomato sauce over rice, broccoli salad - and bread pudding ..."

Aren't semicolons the correct english list separator?

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#57

Post by DangitBobby »

chrischapman wrote: post #40

I'm just seeing arrays everywhere. 1, 2, and 3 seems wrong to me. I reckon it should either be 1, 2, 3 or 1, 2 and 3. When a comma is followed directly by 'and' (or by 'or'), one of them just seems superfluous. On a side note, it makes you wonder if lawyers should take a course in programming. I wonder if these two arrays would have clarified matters: The Intent of the Contract: no overtime for the following: [ canni…

It really does seem like simply adding more punctuation could save a lot of trouble.

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#58

Post by jonas21 »

Tyr42 wrote: post #30
seanwilson wrote: post #7

> “The next day, I enjoyed pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce over rice, broccoli salad and bread pudding with chocolate sauce.” A comma after “broccoli salad” would have cleared the table before dessert. I think if you write a sentence that's highly dependent on the reader paying careful attention to where an easy-to-miss comma is, you assume all readers know what Oxford commas are, and the sentence generates a…

The next day I enjoyed - pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce over rice - boccoli salad - bread pudding with chocolate sauce. There, I fixed it.

There's still ambiguity as to whether it's:

   (pan-roasted oysters) with (a tomato sauce over rice)
or:

   (pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce) over rice

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#59

Post by Gunax »

skulk wrote: post #53
Asooka wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The meaning seems obvious. A well regulated militia is required for the security of a free state. Therefore, people's freedom to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. It declares an already existing freedom to keep and bear arms (as IIRC nothing on the federal level forbade it), and forbids its infringement by the state, with the goal of keeping the population familiar with the operation of firearms for the bene…

That explanation you linked is a whole lot of words, and after reading it I am less sure of what I thought the Second Amendment means than ever. Its meaning is anything but obvious. I say this because there is nothing about self-defense in the text of the Second Amendment, and yet the SCOTUS has held that self-defense is one of the rights that cannot be infringed. It's not at all obvious how a statement about the nec…

Well, we are talking about a body that finds the constitution protects privacy, even though CTRL-F 'privacy' has zero results.

I am not saying they are right or wrong, but any pretense that the courts rule based on the text of the law should be discarded.

The reality is they find rights and laws that seem reasonable to their own selves, and disregard precedent that is poorly argued (ie they don't like the result).

The alternative is perhaps that we are stuck with Plessy v Ferguson until the end of time or a constitutional amendment is ratified (end of time seems more plausible).

Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)

#60

Post by CamperBob2 »

sixothree wrote: post #56
intrasight wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a fan of hyphens: "...oysters with a tomato sauce over rice, broccoli salad - and bread pudding ..."

Aren't semicolons the correct english list separator?

That's another argument in itself. I was always taught that phrases set apart by semicolons need to be capable of standing alone as complete sentences, so it's jarring to see them used to delimit nouns or noun phrases in a list.

At the same time, the language clearly needs a comma-like operator with higher precedence than the comma, and it's very hard to argue against pressing the semicolon into that role.

Post reply on HN