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Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

cnn.com

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Re: Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

#2
I really enjoyed this story. However I did struggle on one part:

> Whitson, his 13-year-old son and girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, had decided to spend Father's Day weekend backpacking the Arroyo Seco River.

It took me longer to parse this sentence than I should perhaps admit to. The first couple of reads lead me to believe his son and girlfriend were the same person.

Re: Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

#3
post #2

I really enjoyed this story. However I did struggle on one part: > Whitson, his 13-year-old son and girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, had decided to spend Father's Day weekend backpacking the Arroyo Seco River. It took me longer to parse this sentence than I should perhaps admit to. The first couple of reads lead me to believe his son and girlfriend were the same person.

Nice place for an Oxford comma.

Re: Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

#4
post #2

I really enjoyed this story. However I did struggle on one part: > Whitson, his 13-year-old son and girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, had decided to spend Father's Day weekend backpacking the Arroyo Seco River. It took me longer to parse this sentence than I should perhaps admit to. The first couple of reads lead me to believe his son and girlfriend were the same person.

Nice place for an Oxford comma.

I was thinking this too. I'm generally a big fan of the Oxford comma.

Re: Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

#5
This reminded me of this real life story of trying to find a German family that got lost in Death Valley. It's a tragic story but I found very interesting how this person tries to piece together what happened. It's a long but worthwhile read.

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

Re: Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

#6
Among other reasons, this is why i have a contingency email draft that I have ready to go whenever I go out on a serious-ish hike, along these lines:

“here’s who is going, this is our license plate, this is our gear, this is how much food we have, here’s a very rough itinerary; if i don’t update this email by such and such a time, contact the following SAR groups...”

Re: Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

#7

Among other reasons, this is why i have a contingency email draft that I have ready to go whenever I go out on a serious-ish hike, along these lines: “here’s who is going, this is our license plate, this is our gear, this is how much food we have, here’s a very rough itinerary; if i don’t update this email by such and such a time, contact the following SAR groups...”

My favorite service for this: https://www.deadmansswitch.net

Re: Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

#8
post #2

I really enjoyed this story. However I did struggle on one part: > Whitson, his 13-year-old son and girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, had decided to spend Father's Day weekend backpacking the Arroyo Seco River. It took me longer to parse this sentence than I should perhaps admit to. The first couple of reads lead me to believe his son and girlfriend were the same person.

Nice place for an Oxford comma.

[deleted]

Re: Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

#9
post #2

I really enjoyed this story. However I did struggle on one part: > Whitson, his 13-year-old son and girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, had decided to spend Father's Day weekend backpacking the Arroyo Seco River. It took me longer to parse this sentence than I should perhaps admit to. The first couple of reads lead me to believe his son and girlfriend were the same person.

Leaving out the oxford comma is like relying on JavaScript automatic semicolon insertion - it works fine, until it doesn't.

Re: Two California hikers found a family's message in a bottle and helped save them

#10
post #2

I really enjoyed this story. However I did struggle on one part: > Whitson, his 13-year-old son and girlfriend, Krystal Ramirez, had decided to spend Father's Day weekend backpacking the Arroyo Seco River. It took me longer to parse this sentence than I should perhaps admit to. The first couple of reads lead me to believe his son and girlfriend were the same person.

Nice place for an Oxford comma.

The Oxford comma isn't the issue here. The issue is that "his" binds both son and girlfriend, and therefore needs an "and" in front of it. It's not grammatical as is.
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