"the State of Maine specifically instructs drafters of legal statutes not to use the serial comma"
Why would they ever suggest not using the comma? Maybe they'll change the instructions now.
A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
31–40 of 98 posts
Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
#32Ahh, 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…
I wonder if programmers use the Oxford comma more than the general population. It just feels more consistent to me to have all items delineated with commas (or semicolon if items contain commas: http://sana.aalto.fi/awe/punctuation/semicolons/02.html ).
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Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
#33Ahh, 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…
I wonder if programmers use the Oxford comma more than the general population. It just feels more consistent to me to have all items delineated with commas (or semicolon if items contain commas: http://sana.aalto.fi/awe/punctuation/semicolons/02.html ).
It's not consistent, though. Nobody uses the Oxford comma in a list of two.
In the Oxford regime, "apples and oranges", when prefixed with another fruit, becomes "bananas, apples, and oranges".
If you wanted to implement an "insert commas" algorithm recursively, choosing Oxford requires passing an extra bit along to signal to the terminal case (joining the last two list elements) that there are > 2 elements total. Inelegant to my mind.
Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
#34> “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 ..."
I'm having palpitations at this.
Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
#35> “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 ..."
I'm a big fan of em dashes, which—when used like this—signal a parenthetical remark.
Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
#36Why, 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 ?
The government isn't preventing them from negotiating a better contract with their employers, it's just refusing to enshrine their entitlement to overtime into state law. From that point of view, this carve-out reduces government interference in labour relations.
I think it could be argued that carving out an exception counts as increased interference because it means the government is inserting itself between all workers and employers in order to mandate job classifications. Without exceptions, businesses would not have to spend time/money defending their assertion that this worker is A and that worker is B and thus is less entitled to greater pay.
Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
#37And the $2M comma issue from Canada https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/the-2-mil...
And Rogers Won.
http://www.slaw.ca/2007/08/22/rogers-wins-comma-contract-dis...
Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
#38> “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…
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Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
#39> “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 would write "... and bread pudding with chocolate sauce as desert."
Re: A few words about that ten-million-dollar serial comma (2017)
#40I'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: [ canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, distribution ] This would have included truck drivers because it separates packing from distribution.
The Ruling: No overtime for the following: [ canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for [ shipment, distribution ] ] This excludes truck drivers because it puts distribution with packing and truck drivers don't pack! The power of arrays.