The case for and against the Oxford comma | Hacker News Reader

The case for and against the Oxford comma

theglobeandmail.com

34 pointsrfugger18 comments

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.

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.

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.

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).

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

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.

A real life example

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

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.

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

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

> 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...

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.

The convention for ruby is 2 spaces.

The same was the case for lisp.

But you can actually make do with just one space.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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