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I don't think I've ever heard an impassioned argument against the Oxford Comma. I mean, I have no problem with it, but there seems to be a belief that this is a
by weeksie 10y ago
I don't think I've ever heard an impassioned argument against the Oxford Comma. I mean, I have no problem with it, but there seems to be a belief that this is a less filling/tastes great holy war, but really, omitting the serial comma is fairly archaic at this point. At least in my experience. Sometimes lists need one, sometimes they don't. At this point in the evolution of our written language that should be a fairly unambiguous proposition.
- leephillips 10y ago"omitting the serial comma is fairly archaic at this point" Wish that were true! But many news organization style guides condemn the Oxford comma, with sometimes disastrous results: http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/12/06/for-want-of-an-oxford-comma/ http://www.chronicle.com/blogs/linguafranca/2016/12/06/for-w...
- mercer 10y agoIs there any good argument for eschewing the extra comma when it clearly disambiguates the meaning of the sentence? I can't think of one, but I also find it (slightly) difficult to believe that anyone smart enough to write an article would insist on ambiguity for no good reason... EDIT: to disambiguate my own comment: with 'when' I meant 'in cases where leaving out the comma causes ambiguity'. Personally I try to prioritize clarity so sometimes I will use an extra comma, and sometimes I won't.
- tetromino_ 10y agoThe extra comma sometimes creates ambiguity. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma#Creating_ambiguity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma#Creating_ambiguit... for example.
- jakelazaroff 10y agoIt can create ambiguity as well as remove it, depending on which terms can be appositives to other terms. Classic example: "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God." (ambiguous without the comma) "To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God." (ambiguous with the comma)
- UweSchmidt 10y agoNot a native speaker, but if Ayn Rand is your mother I'd blame the first comma for the ambiguity. "To my mother Ayn Rand, and God."
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- savanaly 10y agoThe problem isn't that there doesn't exist a sentence that maps onto only the meaning that Ayn Rand is your mother, it's that there exists a sentence which one could reasonably arrive at that maps on to both the meaning where Ayn Rand is your mother and the meaning where she's not.
- dublinben 10y agoAppositive clauses like that often require a comma. [0] I'd argue that this one does, even though it makes the sentence more confusing as a whole. [0] https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/596/01/ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/596/01/
- rdiddly 10y agoIf your mother is Ayn Rand, you've got bigger problems. Sorry, couldn't resist.
- SamBam 10y agoBut that's just grammatically wrong, in English. Appositive clauses require a comma. Forgetting God, you can just look at the sentence "To my mother, Ayn Rand." We put a comma there because the object of the sentence is "mother," and then we're clarifying who "mother" is. We'd only omit the comma if "Mother Ayn Rand" were a noun phrase all by itself, like "Father John." Similarly: "This is to my arch-nemesis, Ayn Rand, who always doubted me." The commas are necessary there for the same reason. (How did Ayn Rand enter this discussion..?)
- paulcole 10y agoJust reorder it?
- gutnor 10y ago> with sometimes disastrous results There are other language like French without the Oxford comma and that does not lead to disastrous misunderstandings. It is not like the English language, in general, does not have plenty of room for misinterpretation, even in every day speech. However if you look at the level of precision people need the Oxford coma for, you would have the impression you are in a project coin discussion for a small tweak in the java language causing compiler warnings.
- erelde 10y agoWe don't have the "Oxford comma", but we do do lists with commas. And it would be really confusing if we didn't.
- kuschku 10y agoThere’s also German, where lists are done as a, b, c and d. Oxford comma will get marked as mistake in an essay you write in Germany, and you’ll loose points for it.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- charlesdm 10y agoSame for Dutch. HOWEVER: why not use it? It often just does not make sense not to use it. If a sentence can be interpreted in an ambiguous way, I personally wouldn't really care.
- kuschku 10y agoBecause if you know no one will ever use it, you also reduce ambiguity. Then you can solve the remaining issues with using — instead.
- charlesdm 10y agoThe same grammar issue exists in, for example, Dutch. The Oxford comma however, does not exist there. While technically incorrect, my daily use of English has led me to start using it in Dutch as well. It often clears up sentences which are ambiguous. Interestingly enough most Dutch people find those sentences perfectly normal because they are unaware the Oxford comma exists.
- akud 10y agoYea, it seems strictly better to include the comma. It can only make things _more_ claer, never less.
- andylei 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma#Creating_ambiguity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma#Creating_ambiguit...
- mncolinlee 10y agoMajor organizations' style guides disagree with you. At least in the USA, the Oxford comma is under real and constant assault by the defenders of imprecise and ambiguous grammar. Whenever someone inevitably takes the side of these atrocious style guides, I inevitably pull out my Oxford comma insult, "I listened to [Complaining person], a serial killer and a hapless fool. However, no one could tell if I was speaking to one person or three."
- couchand 10y agoYour supposed slam dunk simply isn't. Take the same example modified twice: "I listened to [Complaining person], a serial killer, and a hapless fool. However, no one could tell if I was speaking to one person or two." Note that the phrase "a serial killer" could reasonably be read as an aside describing the first party. There is no silver bullet.