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

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

#21

Post by ohazi »

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 syntax to make it super clear, rather than relying on the reader hopefully having similar culinary sensibilities?

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

#22

Post by gopher_space »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #6

Why, commas not withstanding, should Maine prevent people in the food supply chain business from getting overtime. I am pinko-Euro-liberal and even I think that's government meddling. Is there a historic reason for this if just labour-bashing ?

Easy to miss line in the article says it’s due to avoiding spoilage in harvested food.

Absolutely labor bashing.

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

#23

Post by CharlesW »

thom wrote: post #8

Many people use the Oxford comma in every case because they don’t trust their own judgement about ambiguity. That’s always struck me as pretty lazy, despite proponents insisting it’s some sort of principled stance.

> That’s always struck me as pretty lazy, despite proponents insisting it’s some sort of principled stance.

You don't need the comma before "despite", but I don't think you're lazy because of that.

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

#24

Post by djrogers »

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.”

Your version is even more ambiguous:

Were the oysters separate from or included in the tomato sauce, and was said sauce served over rice, or was it served on the broccoli salad as well? Or perhaps it was a salad comprised of both rice and broccoli, over which a tomato sauce was poured - either with or without the pan seared oysters?

Just use the freaking commas - it makes everyone's life a lot easier.

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

#25

Post by zerocrates »

rootusrootus wrote: post #17
Jun8 wrote: post #3

Ahh, one of my pet peeves! I like and use the Oxford comma in my emails but have observed am in the extreme minority on this one. Here’s an English SE question with some interesting answers: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/412/should-i-put... . Here’s Another answer with great visual illustration of the strippers, JFK, and Stalin example: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/172671/oxford-co... . M…

> My other sensibilities include not putting two spaces at sentence end (among other things this shows that you’re most probably 40+) and writing PowerPoint slide titles in sentence case rather than title case. Yep, guilty on both counts, and over 40. I feel no particular inclination to change, either, since neither seems to be anything more than personal preference. Someone will always disagree, so I just stick to t…

The "two spaces" thing also complicated by the fact that in so many contexts the extra space is simply ignored, as browsers ignore additional whitespace by default and so much writing and reading takes place through a browser or some other thing rendering HTML these days.

Of course you can do things like "pre" formatting or insertion of non-breaking spaces to force their rendering, but that's somewhat rare. I wonder if HN does that? Doesn't look like it.

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

#26

Post by jkubicek »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #6

Why, commas not withstanding, should Maine prevent people in the food supply chain business from getting overtime. I am pinko-Euro-liberal and even I think that's government meddling. Is there a historic reason for this if just labour-bashing ?

> Lest we lose perspective, this law on the books of the State of Maine applies to people who work with perishable foods, and the point is that pokey employees should not be rewarded for taking their sweet time getting the goods to market.

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

#27

Post by djrogers »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #6

Why, commas not withstanding, should Maine prevent people in the food supply chain business from getting overtime. I am pinko-Euro-liberal and even I think that's government meddling. Is there a historic reason for this if just labour-bashing ?

> Why, commas not withstanding, should Maine prevent people in the food supply chain business from getting overtime.

This provision doesn't prohibit overtime pay, it excludes that group of people from government-mandated overtime pay. A company could still choose to pay it's workers overtime, or workers could demand/negotiate that.

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

#28

Post by tzs »

There are examples where using an Oxford comma makes a sentence ambiguous and there are examples where not using an Oxford comma makes a sentence ambiguous.

In all the examples I've seen where using an Oxford comma makes a sentence ambiguous that sentence contains an appositive phrase that is set off with commas and that is what creates the ambiguity.

Commas are the most common way to set off an appositive phrase, but it is generally considered acceptable to use em dashes or parenthesis instead. Switch to using one of those instead of commas for your appositives, always use the Oxford comma, and I think that clears up all the ambiguous cases.

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

#29

Post by kbenson »

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…

Wat this all is, to my eyes, is people putting form over function. If you care about the message, you consider the people receiving it and try to reduce ambiguity as much as possible. If you care about the medium, then you make trade-offs about aesthetics which may reduce legibility but appeal to some other quality that is being considered.

There's obviously a place for both. Poetry does not necessarily benefit by removing ambiguity. Technical manuals do. Depending on what the author is attempting to do, different choices may be made.

In contracts meant to define actions and behaviors, ambiguity is not beneficial (at least not for anyone that's not trying to swindle someone else). There are constructs or forms that can be used to reduce ambiguity, and they should be used where appropriate. For example, if a bulleted list is allowed, that removes quite a bit of ambiguity in some cases.

Unfortunately, for contracts we are forced to use an imprecise medium (natural language) to define what we want to be a precise set of constraints. There will always be some friction there where one for not accurately account for what's meant by the other. Additionally, accurately describing all relevant facets of reality that might apply is hard.

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

#30

Post by Tyr42 »

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.
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