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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)

#91

Post by notjulianjaynes »

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.

No, it's a list of two subsets contained in the set "meal."

     - main-dishes (x1)

     - side-dishes (x2)
The entree set has 1 item in it, the "pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce over rice.The ingredients of "entree" follow the same hierarchical structure as the ingredients of "meal," so:

     -main-ingredients (x1)

     -side-ingredients (x2)
Since we're only talking about two sets here, a comma separating them is unnecessary. You could use one if you wanted, ("pan-roasted oysters, with a tomato sauce over rice") but then the syntax of the sentence would be off. You'd have a list of three things:

     -pan roasted oysters

     -a tomato sauce over rice

     -broccoli salad and bread pudding with chocolate sauce
This is logically inconsistent because the oysters, tomatoes, and rice comprise a single dish. The tomatoes and rice don't stand on their own but describe how the oysters are prepared and served, just as the non-entrees describe how the meal is served.

Lets compare:

ORIGINAL: >“The next day, I enjoyed pan-roasted oysters with a tomato sauce over rice, broccoli salad and bread pudding with chocolate sauce."

OXFORD COMMA: > “The next day, I enjoyed pan-roasted oysters, with a tomato sauce over rice, broccoli salad, and bread pudding with chocolate sauce."

By structuring the sentence in that way, you erase any information about the value of the meal, and the relationships between its components. In return you ensure that someone won't think there was chocolate sauce on the broccoli salad.

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

#92

Post by lukas099 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #62
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…

The only way to misread the Second Amendment is to assume that it, alone among the other amendments in the original Bill of Rights, was written to constrain the people rather than the government. In other words, you have to approach the question with an agenda -- and a conclusion -- already in mind. Bad for intellectual honesty regardless of how you feel about gun ownership rights.

Who is reading the Second Amendment as constraining the people rather than the government?

It seems like it is either constraining the government from restricting the private ownership and use of firearms altogether, or it is constraining the government from restricting the private ownership and use of firearms for the purpose of maintaining a militia.

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

#93

Post by Smithalicious »

sudobash1 wrote: post #9
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…

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 ).

I don't like the Oxford comma, because I see a, b, c a and b and c, i.e. the comma is a stand-in for the word "and". Thus "a, b, and c" has a double separator between b and c.

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

#94

Post by seanhunter »

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 think if you write a sentence that's highly dependent on the reader paying careful attention to where an easy-to-miss comma is, ... it's just a bad sentence.

Consider the function of the comma in "Time to eat, Grandma" vs "Time to eat Grandma".

Proper punctuation saves lives.

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

#95

Post by CamperBob2 »

lukas099 wrote: post #92
CamperBob2 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to misread the Second Amendment is to assume that it, alone among the other amendments in the original Bill of Rights, was written to constrain the people rather than the government. In other words, you have to approach the question with an agenda -- and a conclusion -- already in mind. Bad for intellectual honesty regardless of how you feel about gun ownership rights.

Who is reading the Second Amendment as constraining the people rather than the government? It seems like it is either constraining the government from restricting the private ownership and use of firearms altogether, or it is constraining the government from restricting the private ownership and use of firearms for the purpose of maintaining a militia.

Who is reading the Second Amendment as constraining the people rather than the government?

Everyone who argues that the "militia" means the National Guard or another organized, government-sanctioned body.

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

#96

Post by a4isms »

robocat wrote: post #45
a4isms wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a big fan of em dashes, which—when used like this—signal a parenthetical remark.

Parentheses are way better than em-dashes for parenthetical remarks. A set of parentheses make the syntax unambiguous. An em-dash is “that multifaceted, all-purpose punctuation mark that can act as a parenthesis, comma, colon, semicolon or even quotation mark”. Also I have spent too much time with computer languages, and I personally find the lack of spacing around the parenthetical em-dash to be an ugly syntax. Then…

I am a writer, and fully conversant with the fact that an em dash signals a break in the flow of a sentence, and one such use of a break in the flow is to use two of them to introduce a remark about the sentence itself, and then return to the sentence.

If you think parentheses are "way better," use them as you see fit. I can't imagine using both in the same sentence, but both are in my toolbox and I use whichever one suits the tone and content I'm communicating. (I often prefer parentheses for complete sentences.)

As for you spending too much time with computer languages and not liking the lack of spacing around em dashes, I believe you but don't share your taste at all. What am I to make of 1+(2*3)? Why do we not need spaces around operators and parentheses in arithmetic, but somehow it's ugly in prose?

Why are you ok with no space between the last word of this sentence and the interrogative? If you don't like a lack of spaces around em dashes, what do you think about "quotes?"

I am extremely familiar with en dashes and thin spaces. When writing text intended to be set with variable width, I put thin spaces on either side of en dashes but not em dashes. So I use thin spaces around an en dash 3 - 4 times a day.

What you have is a kind of taste. It's not universal. But it's yours, and if it serves you and your readers, it's fine.

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

#97

Post by coolgeek »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #95
lukas099 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is reading the Second Amendment as constraining the people rather than the government? It seems like it is either constraining the government from restricting the private ownership and use of firearms altogether, or it is constraining the government from restricting the private ownership and use of firearms for the purpose of maintaining a militia.

Who is reading the Second Amendment as constraining the people rather than the government? Everyone who argues that the "militia" means the National Guard or another organized, government-sanctioned body.

While the US Constitution might not strictly define militia as government-sanctioned, nearly every (if not every) state does so either in state level Constitutions or legislation.

Private militias are illegal

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

#98

Post by dragonwriter »

coolgeek wrote: post #97
CamperBob2 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is reading the Second Amendment as constraining the people rather than the government? Everyone who argues that the "militia" means the National Guard or another organized, government-sanctioned body.

While the US Constitution might not strictly define militia as government-sanctioned, nearly every (if not every) state does so either in state level Constitutions or legislation. Private militias are illegal

> While the US Constitution might not strictly define militia as government-sanctioned

The US Constitution presupposes a generally universal militia and US statute law explicitly defines the federal militia as consisting of all able bodied males 17-45 who are, or have made a declaration of intent to become, US citizens, plus those over 45 in or eligible to join the National Guard, plus all females in the National Guard.

> Private militias are illegal

Private militias are not generally illegal, but they are generally prohibited by each state from engaging in actions reserved for the state militia.

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