Farrar Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 This seemed like a story up the Hive's alley. https://qz.com/932004/the-oxford-comma-a-maine-court-settled-the-grammar-debate-over-serial-commas-with-a-ruling-on-overtime-pay-for-dairy-truck-drivers/ "The profoundly nerdy ruling is also a win for anyone who dogmatically defends the serial comma." 32 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitten18 Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 😂â¤ï¸ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goldberry Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Yeah, so there! ;) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEmama Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Love it! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 the drivers responded that all the other exempted activities were listed as gerunds :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alice Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 (edited) That is hilarious. My niece is a paralegal and we had a similar conversation at dinner one night. The (hypothetical) question was if someone left an inheritance in their will and phrased it as "divided between Johnny, Susie, Billy and Joe." She said that if they didn't put the comma it would mean that Johnny got 1/3, Susie got 1/3 and Billy and Joe shared the final 1/3. Everyone else said she was crazy and that it would clearly be that the intent was for Johnny, Susie, Billy, and Joe to each get 1/4. I didn't know which would be legally correct but I could imagine that in the legal world that comma could make a big difference. Edited March 15, 2017 by Alice 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 I love the Oxford Comma!! It gets rid of ambiguity. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edelweiss Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Big fan of the Oxford Comma here! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Butter Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Long live the Oxford comma! 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whitestavern Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 This makes me crazy happy :) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Thank you for posting this, I love the legal reasoning. And the Oxford comma. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonFaerie Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Yes!!! I am TOTALLY taking this story to my college students tomorrow! I always tell them that in MY classroom, the Oxford comma is required. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Ha! Now maybe lawmakers and lobbyists everywhere will suddenly be massive proponents of funding for increasing grammar lessons in public schools. ;) Or we can hope. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Ha! Now maybe lawmakers and lobbyists everywhere will suddenly be massive proponents of funding for increasing grammar lessons in public schools. ;) Or we can hope. I agree that the sentence about exceptions was legally ambiguous, but I didn't see anything ungrammatical. It is entirely possible for ambiguity and correct grammar to coexist. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MomatHWTK Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junie Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mothersweets Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 I love this. Long live the Oxford comma! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamaraby Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Is it kind of sad that this thread title was actually exciting to me ?Hey, if it's sad for you, then at leastwe're all in the same boat. :) 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted March 15, 2017 Author Share Posted March 15, 2017 Is it kind of sad that this thread title was actually exciting to me ? It made me feel like I could be a kickass lawyer. Things that make me feel capable are always exciting. ;) 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MorningGlory Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Thank you for sharing! My husband and I love to argue about the Oxford comma. Here is a sentence from the article: Because of that lack of clarity, the five drivers have won their lawsuit against Oakhurst, and are eligible for unpaid overtime. What do you think about that comma after "Oakhurst"? ;-) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spy Car Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Hip, Hip, and Hurrah! :D Bill 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 The comma after Oakhurst is not necessary because the next phrase is dependent not independent nor is there a county, state, or province after Oakhurst. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephanier.1765 Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 I'm glad I was taught to use one and that I taught it to my own children as well. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milovany Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 I didn't used to like the Oxford comma because the context in which it arose most for me was in the newsroom. My major was print journalism and we got rid of commas whenever we feasibly could because doing so could give us an entire additional line for our news story. Out went the Oxford comma. I've stuck with this for all these years until recently. I transcribed a basic English class recently and the professor gave an example similar to the "the inheritance will be split between Tom, Sue, Bill and John" example in which it mattered. Just like the news story referenced in the OP. So I'm converting -- albeit slowly. I'm currently redoing the service books at church and I'm back to wanting to save space and getting more in the lines on a page. So it goes, so it goes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Fun ... though I am wondering why any of those jobs would be overtime-exempt .... I was taught to NOT use that extra comma. My English teacher was very very picky and I would lose points if I did that. Now, I do whatever I feel like doing - sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't. But I do write / edit legal documents at times, and those times, I am super careful to be precise. Kuz you never know .... Some of my sibs are fb friends of that old English teacher. I should ask them to post that story on her fb. :P 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
readinmom Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 This is awesome! Maybe there will be a law class devoted to punctuation now... :laugh: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
milovany Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 (edited) I saw it mentioned, and I think this is just as relevant for grammar geeks, that having all the other actions in the sentence end in -ing except for "distribution" also added to the ambiguity. As someone who strives for parallelilty (I made that word up; it's fun to say if you put the emphasis on LEL), I agree. Edited March 17, 2017 by milovany 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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