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Oxford Comma Dispute Is Settled as Maine Drivers Get $5M
- tzs 9y agoQuestion: the Wikipedia article on this subject [1] gives this example as a case where including the comma would create ambiguity: To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God The ambiguity is that dedication could be read as a dedication to two entities: To <my mother, Ayn Rand>, and <God> or to three entities: To <my mother>, <Ayn Rand>, and <God> I agree with that. However, isn't it also ambiguous WITHOUT the Oxford comma? It can be to three entities, same as with the comma: To <my mother>, <Ayn Rand> and <God> but it could also be taken as to one entity: To <my mother>, <Ayn Rand and God> The Wikipedia page (at the moment) does not consider the one entity interpretation. It seems to me that the ambiguity in this comes not from the Oxford comma's presence or absence, but rather from whether or not the comma after "mother" is part of an appositive phrase. Offhand, I don't think I've seen an example where an unambiguous sentence without an Oxford comma becomes ambiguous with the addition of the comma. All the ones I can recall have another ambiguity from an appositive phrase or similar without the Oxford comma and the Oxford comma at most just changes the ambiguity. On the other hand there are sentences that are unambiguous with the Oxford comma that become ambiguous if it is removed. This suggests that the Oxford comma should always be used when the list has more than two items, and it is appositive phrases that we need to be scrutinizing. For appositive phrases, maybe we should use parenthesis instead of comma? In the above examples the appositive phrase cases become: To my mother (Ayn Rand) and God To my mother (Ayn Rand and God) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kspiteri 9y ago"To my mother, Ayn Rand and my daughter" is not ambiguous without the Oxford comma, but would be with it.
- drblast 9y agoThat seems ambiguous to me. Is the mother Ayn Rand or not? The presence of the Oxford comma, or lack thereof doesn't seem to affect the ambiguity.
- grzm 9y ago> "To my mother, Ayn Rand and my daughter" - Ayn Rand can't be in apposition of my mother as there's no comma setting Ayn Rand off from my daughter - Similarly, Ayn Rand and my daughter are not in apposition - my daughter and my mother are mutually exclusive This is described in more detail here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma#Ambiguity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma#Ambiguity > "To my mother, Ayn Rand, and my daughter" Adding the Oxford comma creates ambiguity between my mother and Ayn Rand, unless the speaker is Ayn Rand's daughter.
- cryptonector 9y agoBut here we're using semantics to disambiguate. It works, sure, but it works in fewer cases than punctuating/rephrasing to avoid the ambiguity grammatically rather than semantically. Semantic disambiguation also imposes a higher cognitive load on the reader -- sometimes that's the point (high-brow writin'). But you should consider the poor reader. After all, you want to be read and understood.
- grzm 9y agoSure, which is why I mentioned the exception. The whole point of the example is to show there are cases where the Oxford comma alone doesn’t prevent ambiguity in all cases. I’m not arguing that the Oxford comma is silly. I’m just explaining how the example can be ambiguous. Language is messy and wonderful and frustrating and fun!
- tzs 9y agoIt only says the mother is Ayn Rand if the comma after mother is taken as making an appositive phrase. There is no later comma to end the appositive phrase, so we'd have to take "Ayn Rand and my daughter" and so it would be saying that his mother is both Ayn Rand and his daughter. That's not possible so we can rule out the comma making an appositive phrase, and see that it must be a list comma, and we've got no ambiguity. Putting in the Oxford comma makes it so we could interpret "My mother, Ayn Rand," as an appositive phrase, and we have ambiguity.
- radicalbyte 9y agoI agree with you, the correct way to write that is with dashes: To my mother - Ayn Rand - and God. Or or the parentheses: To my mother (Ayn Rand) and God. Then you disambiguate the extra information over the first item in the list. Which makes way more sense then including it in the list and assuming that the reader will disambiguate via their external contextual knowledge. How any rational and intelligent person could argue for anything else is beyond me. Or maybe I've stumbled upon the dark secret of the humanities?
- cperciva 9y agoI'm as big a fan of the Oxford comma as anyone, but the court ruling here was ridiculous. External evidence, including the state legislature's style guide, made it perfectly clear what the law meant.
- behindmyscreen 9y agostyle guides are not laws and if the style guide changes it changes the meaning of the law.
- lsaferite 9y agoBut a style guide in effect at the time the law was written would clearly help disambiguate the intent of the law. That being said, I'm an Oxford comma fan.
- nv-vn 9y agoYes, but the intent of a law matters. It's why it goes to court in the first place. I mean the meaning here is pretty clear, different from a real legal loophole where the system just hasn't been thoroughly planned.
- SeanLuke 9y agoI agree. I think the Oxford comma is a necessity; but so far as I can tell there is only one grammatically valid parsing of the sentence.
- ubernostrum 9y agoNot so ridiculous, really. A style guide isn't necessarily legally binding, and even clear evidence of legislative intent doesn't always get there if someone can argue the law that actually got written was ambiguous. California's red-light infractions are a pretty common example of this. The vehicle code lays out what the infractions are, and the people who drafted it have said very clearly that they intended to have a "rolling turn" -- making a right turn at a red light without coming to a full stop first -- be a lesser infraction than running a red (driving straight through without stopping). But a number of cities in California have argued the language is ambiguous enough to let them ticket a rolling turn as running the red light, and that's exactly what they do (most likely because the fines and fees are far higher). It's also pretty well known that anyone who hires a lawyer to fight one of those will get the ticket dismissed, because the cities don't want it to ever be argued all the way out and potentially turn into a ruling against their interpretation.
- kevinmhickey 9y agoFeels like they could have made this even simpler by reordering the exemptions. For example: The distribution, canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing or packing for shipment of: I'm a fan of the Oxford comma and think it would still add clarity here. The semicolon solution is ham-fisted and unnecessary.
- patorjk 9y agoBut doesn't that make "storing" ambiguous? It could mean "storing" of the 3 following categories, or "storing for shipment" of the 3 following categories.
- kevinmhickey 9y agoFair point. I suppose that means the Oxford comma is actually necessary in this case.
- logfromblammo 9y agoIt would have been even clearer as Any activity necessary to prevent the spoilage of comestible goods prior to their arrival at a market where they may be offered for sale to consumers, including, but not limited to, the activities specified in subsection (1) and the goods specified in subsection (2). (1) Activities: (a) Canning, (b) Processing, (c) Preserving, (d) Freezing, (e) Drying, (f) Marketing, (g) Storing, (h) Packing for shipment, or (i) Distribution. (2) Goods: (a) Agricultural produce, (b) Meat products, (c) Fish products, or (d) Perishable foods. A lawyer would then be able to specifically address the relevant portion of the law, by labeling the plaintiffs as satisfying both (1)(i) and (2)(d), along with satisfying the overall criterion of getting a perishable comestible to market prior to its spoilage. Writing the intent of the law into the actual law is a great way to keep lawyers from arguing over commas. What we want is for them to argue about whether pasteurized dairy goods would have spoiled if the drivers had worked a normal shift. Presumably, they would have been kept in refrigerators overnight? But it would have been even clearer to not have the law at all. The businesses that benefited from it would just have to pay more for the labor capacity that they clearly anticipated, since they got a legislator to pass this law for them. Need more driver labor to get your milk to market? Hire another driver or pay your existing drivers overtime!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- BenjiWiebe 9y agoJust my 2c: to me the original is really really hard to parse. I'm not sure why, but it just doesn't make sense to me.
- s73v3r_ 9y agoMaybe the easiest way to settle things like this would be to simply not give exemptions for overtime pay.
- paulcole 9y agoTo paraphrase one of my favorite quotes (from the guy who developed Comic Sans): If you really love the Oxford Comma you don't know much about writing and need a new hobby. If you really hate the Oxford Comma you don't know much about writing and need a new hobby.
- behindmyscreen 9y agoYou might have been implying this with your parenthetical but, just to say it, the irony is that the same guy created Comic Sans.
- paulcole 9y agoI wasn't implying that, just giving him credit for a great quote. > In an interview for the Huffington Post, Vincent Connare, designer of Comic Sans, said, “if you love Comic Sans, you don’t know anything about typography. But if you hate Comic Sans, then you don’t know anything about typography either…and you should get another hobby”.
- bihnkim 9y agoIn that case you didn't paraphrase the quote so much as repurpose it.
- ggm 9y agoits neither a paraphrase nor a repurpose, because its not the quote, and its boolean logic doesn't equate to the quote either, comma or not. The original quote only appends "get a new hobby" to one side of the decision logic. This quote has it on both. Obey De-Morgans law, or not. Yoda doesn't care.
- ggm 9y agothis, I think we can all agree. no wait.. this I think, we can all agree. No, hang on, this I think we, can all agree ...
- thaumaturgy 9y agoThat clever bastard dropped an Oxford comma right from the very first sentence of the article. (I understand the Times style guide advises against it. I'm still pretty sure he did it on purpose.)
- ASalazarMX 9y ago> Ending a case that electrified punctuation pedants, grammar goons and comma connoisseurs, Oakhurst Dairy settled an overtime dispute with its drivers that hinged entirely on the lack of an Oxford comma in state law. I see no Oxford comma there. Am I missing something?
- chrisseaton 9y agoHe dropped the comma from the sentence, so it isn't there. That's the point.
- ASalazarMX 9y agoAh, thanks. Now I understand.
- ghayes 9y agoI think OP meant dropped as in "did not include," as opposed to made a reference to. The author set up a sentence that could have, but did not, contain an oxford comma.
- bencoder 9y agoCan someone explain why these exemptions exist in the first place?
- logfromblammo 9y agoThe industry lobbied for them, and there was no workers' union to tell the other side of the story. It seems to me like the intent is to avoid economic waste due to spoilage of perishable goods that might otherwise be sold, but for a dearth of timely labor. It also seems like the burden should be on the employer to hire more laborers if they have need of more labor, or to demonstrate some reasonable level of urgency that would have prevented hiring. Since this suit covered years of unpaid overtime, it is clear to me that someone bought themselves a "F U" law that only benefits their own selfish interests, at the expense of someone else. It is likely responsible for the failure of the business to hire an additional permanent driver employee, or to ever employ a contractor to pick up the slack during rushes and crunches.
- vkou 9y agoBecause when you don't collectively fight for your rights, your boss will fight to take them away, and will probably win. Your employer is in a better position to lobby for a law that will let them underpay 1000 employees by $100 each, then then their employees are to protect themselves from such a law.
- wvenable 9y agoThis says it all: https://i.imgur.com/fycHx.jpg https://i.imgur.com/fycHx.jpg
- ivoras 9y agoUhmh, can anyone elaborate on exactly why someone driving perishable food should be exempt from overtime pay? Isn't it a bit ass-backwards: exactly those who need to work overtime so the food doesn't spoil are the ones who cannot get overtime? Am I reading that correctly?
- wvenable 9y agoIf you are an IT worker you're probably exempt from overtime pay as well. Does nobody bat an eye at this? How is this even justified?
- garmaine 9y agoBecause IT workers make a lot more money than the average voter so they are more likely to be the victim of animosity than the subject of pity.
- ryandrake 9y agoClassic divide and conquer. Nobody will vote for worker protection laws because the law might also benefit someone who makes a different amount of money than them or someone otherwise from a different tribe.
- Spooky23 9y agoLook at the comment in this thread declaring that you’re unreasonable to expect overtime compensation if you should “expect” overtime because of the nature of the work. That’s not a fringe opinion. We live in an era where the rights of workers and individuals is held in contempt by those in business and government. If you aren’t wealthy, you’re defective.
- wvenable 9y agoWe live in an era where the rights of workers is held in contempt by workers. Everybody wants to drag everyone else down.
- niftich 9y agoSince the paragraph in question establishes two sets, why explicitly enumerate one set, while relying on inline punctuation for another? This inconsistency suggests that the two kinds of enumerations aren't similar; yet they are. Their intersections define cases where the provision does or does not apply. (EDIT: the accurate term for this is cartesian product.) Explicit is better than implicit, even when the end result is more wordy. There's dozens of ways to rephrase this, but here's one: The overtime provision of this section does not apply in cases when any of the hereby enumerated activities are done to any of the hereby enumerated categories of items. The activities are: (1) canning; (2) processing; (3) preserving; (4) freezing; (5) drying; (6) marketing; (7) storing; (8) packing for shipment; (9) distributing. The categories of items are: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; (3) Perishable foods. Furthermore, there's an entire other line in this same paragraph about egg processing facilities above a certain size. This should be broken out elsewhere.
- tomsmeding 9y agoThe interpretation that considers "packing for distribution" as an exemption and not "distribution" makes for a grammatically incorrect sentence in any case. "A, B, C or D" is a correct sentence without Oxford comma, and the structure used originally. "A, B, C, or D" is also correct, and does have the Oxford comma. But the interpretation I mentioned reads the sentence as "A, B, C" -- where C is the whole of "packing for shipment or distribution". You need something there, either "and" or "or" or something similar. I'd say the language is perfectly unambiguous, if a little strained. But that's just law texts in general. Edit: consistency
- userbinator 9y agoThings like this are why I really think people should learn boolean expressions --- they are unambiguous: (canning || processing || preserving || freezing || drying || marketing || storing || packing for shipment || distribution) of (Agricultural produce && Meat and fish products && Perishable foods) (Curiously enough, the list of items is combined with AND and not OR --- so presumably, something which does not satisfy one of those conditions is not exempt?) Incidentally, this also explains the content of the LSAT, as discussed previously at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15683658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15683658
- ronnier 9y agoIs their overlap strong between people who want to leave the comma out with the set of people who don't use semicolons in javascript?
- joeax 9y agoAs an author I laugh whenever I hear about the big debate over the Oxford comma. It's the literary equivalent to the big curly brace on the same vs next line. However, in this instance, as well as certain code scenarios in JavaScript, structuring it one way or another can affect the semantics. Like code, disambiguating my text is why I generally favor using the Oxford comma in my writing. Not using it is the equivalent to not using parenthesis in a complex logical expression, and defaulting to known order of operations. Say you want to express: Jane and Tom, Bill and Wendy, or Susie and Frank. In code you would be unambiguous with: (Jane && Tom) || (Bill && Wendy) || (Susie && Frank) So why omit the Oxford comma when it is necessary to disambiguate? It would have saved both parties, as well as the state of Maine a lot of time, money, and headache.
- fshaun 9y agoI agree re: favoring Oxford comma, but I don't think this reasoning supports it. Jane && Tom || Bill && Wendy || Susie && Frank is unambiguous in e.g. C++, as the language specifies operator precedence. The inclusion of parentheses is a question of style, not correctness. OTOH, omitting commas can rely on context and subjective reasoning.
- pierrefar 9y agoSpeaking of commas, you're missing one after the end of the interrupting phrase in your last sentence (should say ", as well as the state of Maine,"). It's a pet peeve bigger than the lack of Oxford commas, and definitely affects readability and may affect meaning.
- joeax 9y agoHa ha thank you.
- cryptonector 9y agoSpeaking of ambiguity: > (In most cases, The Times stylebook discourages the serial comma, often called the Oxford comma because it was traditionally used by the Oxford University Press.) Does the Times just not like styling ideas from the Oxford University Press, or is the name "Oxford comma" derived from its traditional use by the Oxford University Press, or both? What does the Times have against the Oxford University Press, or the Oxford comma, anyways?
- aaronbrethorst 9y agoThe Oxford comma is opposed by the NYT editors, Hitler and Stalin.
- sideshowb 9y agoPlease can we now have a lawsuit punishing somebody for using "less" rather than "fewer"?