The case for and against the Oxford comma

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/warren-clements/the-case-for-and-against-the-oxford-comma/article2090120/

by rfugger • 15 years ago

34 18 15 years ago

So many little thing in life cause so much unnecessary stress. Oxford comma, one or two spaces after a period, and three or four space indentation in code.

epochwolf• 15 years ago

The convention for ruby is 2 spaces.

tomjen32• 15 years ago

The same was the case for lisp.

But you can actually make do with just one space.

cperciva• 15 years ago

8-column tab!

Seriously, if you find that 8-column tabs make you run out of horizontal space, your code needs to be refactored anyway.

jamesbritt• 15 years ago

It's not the lack of space, but the eye-scanning distance, that's annoying.

saulrh• 15 years ago

Every time I see a grammatical argument like this, my first thought is that parentheses, or another way to precisely denote grouping and logical association, would instantly obviate the practice being discussed.

marbletiles• 15 years ago

Whenever I see a thought like that my first thought is that English is a human language, for the transmission of meaning.

Rendering it devoid of all ambiguity and shade in such a fashion would make it easier for computers to parse, but the expense would be losing most poetry and literature.

JeremyBanks• 15 years ago

There's a large gap between removing all ambiguity and adding an explicit grouping syntax. Nevermind computers, plenty of English is far more difficult than it should be for humans to parse.

mvzink• 15 years ago

It would take much more than parentheses to render English "devoid of all ambiguity and shade". Even then, any such stylistic changes couldn't be mandatory (that's not how languages work). You already have the choice of fully explicating a thought using multiple simple, unambiguous clauses which are clearly separated. Authors may neglect this liberty for the sake of art; just as many would like to have that unambiguity, but neglect it because it is meticulous. And now you are going to argue against making parentheses more generally acceptable-- which would in most cases be little more than a stylistic change, favoring a grammatical construct which already exists in the language.

Furthermore, look to the Lojban community for examples of poetry and literature in a truly unambiguous language (a far cry from the English suggested by saulrh).

redxaxder• 15 years ago

((Buffalo buffalo) (Buffalo buffalo) buffalo) buffalo (Buffalo buffalo).

trevelyan• 15 years ago

The problem isn't a lack of specificity in English punctuation. I suspect it's more that few students get their writing corrected on this level. One unambiguous solution is proper use of the colon and semi-colon.

She invited several people: her father, a tuba player; her uncle, who played the guitar; and her boyfriend, a drifting wastrel of a youth generally despised by the rest of the family.

alan-crowe• 15 years ago

A real life example

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/012652.html

jberryman• 15 years ago

Ahem, if Hacker News will allow it, I present for your consideration...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_i1xk07o4g

malkia• 15 years ago

That's terrible. First it was the News of The World, and now the Oxford comma? What's next? We are doomed!

tomjen32• 15 years ago

Sometimes I really wonder if they don't have something more important to discuss than this.

Then I remember that no, somebody properly has their ego invested in the "one correct way to put commas in a list".

Then I piss of that person by using semicolons.

RexRollman• 15 years ago

I have to admit to preferring the oxford comma. I just think it looks better.

rradu• 15 years ago

I'm a big fan of clarity and non-ambiguous statements. If using a serial comma is what it takes to maintain that clarity, then so it shall be.

goblin89• 15 years ago

> Now insert the Oxford comma: She invited her father, a tuba player, and several ballerinas. Suddenly the father has become a tuba player.

Following this logic, without the comma the father becomes both a tuba player and several ballerinas at once...

The case for and against the Oxford comma

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