4 ms·
I hate this example of supposed ambiguity when using the Oxford comma because it is grammatically dubious. It's not a proper parallel construction. The correct
by SeanLuke 10y ago
I hate this example of supposed ambiguity when using the Oxford comma because it is grammatically dubious. It's not a proper parallel construction. The correct sentence is "To my mother, Ayn Rand, and to God." That example needs to be a scrubbed from Wikipedia.
I have yet to see a convincing example of ambiguity in the Oxford comma that doesn't rely on other grammar or style errors or similar shadiness. Given this I think that the anti-oxforders have essentially no case.
- tomjakubowski 10y agoIt's hardly grammatically dubious. It's the dominant style in spoken English, and pretty common in written English too. And you can create the ambiguity just as easily without including a preposition.
- jakelazaroff 10y agoAFAIK there's no rule saying you need to repeat the preposition before each item in a list; if there were, the sentence with the serial comma but no appositive would need to be "To my mother, to Ayn Rand, and to God."
- dragonwriter 10y agoTypically, you would only repeat the preposition for emphasis/effect or if it varies for at least one element—e.g., for the latter, "I wrote to my mother, to Ayn Rand, and for God."
- SeanLuke 10y agoThe parallelism exists in order to deal with the aside, not because it's necessary for every element in the list. But putting aside that debate, here's the thing. You can't fix "to my mother, Ayn Rand, and God" by removing the comma. It's still ambiguous, indeed nonsensical. You fix it by adding "to". That is, the serial comma is not what's creating ambiguity, it's the omission of a word. But the ambiguity in "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God" is fixed by adding a comma. That is, it's the missing comma that's the problem. This is typical of the examples I've seen.