The Oxford Comma and The Internet | Hacker News Reader

The Oxford Comma and The Internet

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57 pointsbronnie43 comments

"Through the window she saw George, a policeman and several onlookers” clearly refers to two people and some onlookers."

No, it doesn't. If anything, I think the use of the Oxford comma would make this more clear (although the most elegant solution is surely just to draft the sentence in a less ambiguous manner).

I don't get it: what is the other interpretation, beyond "two people and some onlookers"? Clearly George cannot be "a policeman and several onlookers".

And the added comma, as said in the article, transform "a policeman" in an aside.

You're wrong.

And with your clever repartee, no one will be able to contradict you.

Sarcasm aside, your comment is useless. I think that there is still significant ambiguity in the sentence as written as you parent comment does. It is only saved by the fact that after the "and" is "two onlookers", allowing the reader to make logical sense of the sentence, but it still holds ambiguity.

You're wrong.

Read nbroyal's response above as to why. A, b and c is quite grammatically clearly a list.

It may be unclear if you are not a native English speaker, but it is grammatically unambiguous.

Eats, shoots and leaves.

Maybe there is some regional variation in how unambiguous this construct is. I can easily interpret your final sentence, "Eats, shoots and leaves," as saying that "eats" (n) are shoots (as in bamboo shoots) and edible leaves.

If you initially parse everything after the comma as the aside, you then have only the fact that "two onlookers" is not something that George coul be to allow you to understand the sentence.

Using an em dash would make the sentence clear.

"Through the window she saw George—a policeman—and several onlookers."

Or one could simply specify who George is by inserting "who is" after George.

"Through the window she saw George, who is a policeman, and several onlookers."

If using the Oxford comma does not make the sentence clear then the sentence needs to be rewritten.

I agree completely, but the original sentence used a policeman as a member of the list, not an appositive. As an ardent lover of the Oxford comma, the only solution for this sentence is to move some words around.

"Through the window she saw several onlookers and George, a police officer."

That fixes two problems with the sentence.

From purely a grammatical standpoint, it does. If one was trying to indicate that George was, in fact, a policeman, then the grammatically correct thing to do would be to add a comma after 'policeman' because it is a parenthetical phrase (i.e. a nonessential bit of detail/information). Without the comma, it is to be parsed as a list.

However, this isn't really a commonly known thing, so it's easy to see how the sentence could be interpreted in different ways.

> If one was trying to indicate that George was, in fact, a policeman, then the grammatically correct thing to do would be to add a comma after 'policeman' because it is a parenthetical phrase (i.e. a nonessential bit of detail/information).

Perhaps it's grammatically correct, but now it's ambiguous. Since "a policeman" could be a parenthetical phrase or just another item in a list. I'd rather something be obviously wrong then unobviously ambiguous.

(I'm not advocating for or against the Oxford Comma in the general case. But here, the right approach is a rephrasing, as suggested by the GP.)

Ah, sorry, I wasn't clear in my response. I didn't mean to imply that adding a comma to the original sentence in question was the correct way to write that sentence. I was simply trying to state that without the Oxford comma, according to grammar rules, the intent is clear, as the article implies.

The problem being alluded to is that adding an Oxford comma makes it appear as if "a policeman" is a parenthetical phrase describing George.

"Through the window she saw George, a policeman, and several onlookers."

Does she see two men, the policeman and George, as well as several onlookers? Or does she see one man, George the policeman, and several onlookers?

Agreed. As shown in my favorite illustration of an Oxford Comma dilemma ever: http://i.imgur.com/5LdZT.jpg

Except that if you really meant the second case, you'd use a colon, not a comma.

The author confuses bikeshedding for the impending end of civility. At length.

> The internet is brimming with exceptional writing, and yet, the good content makes up a tiny fraction of the whole,

Sturgeon's law - 90% of everything is crap.

Why do feel like I'm reading an AI generated article? It's a mashup of some seemingly random paragraphs.

Seems perfectly readable to me.

I thought he made a number of good points all tied together around the suggestion that people aren't taking enough time to read on the web.

Angus, have you read Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death?" I have a feeling you would enjoy it, and would love to hear your comments on it. Keep up the good work.

This author needs to learn another rule of writing: concision.

I actually want to acknowledge Angus for a nicely crafted article. He uses a focused hook (the Oxford Comma) as a way to enter a broader discussion, and then neatly rounds out the article by bringing it back in - albeit a little bluntly - at the end.

I acknowledge that you may be trolling here with a pithy critical comment on an article about how easy it is to write pithy critical comments.

A successful troll is a subtle troll.

No, I mean the article was too long and it could have been stated in fewer words. I am not trolling.

I thought that was what you were saying - the trolling thing was me recognising I may have misread you, so I'm glad I didn't. Thanks for clarifying though!

The title should read, "The Oxford Comma, and The Internet."

An Oxford comma is used in a list. Two items wouldn't have a comma between them.

"The internet is brimming with exceptional writing, and yet, the good content makes up a tiny fraction of the whole, and there is a compelling sense that it's a diminishing fraction."

It's hard to take the rest of the article seriously after reading a sentence like this. We're talking about an issue that almost certainly predates the written word, never mind the internet. Don't confuse your growing awareness of a problem with the growth of a problem.

The next several paragraphs discuss reasons why the internet is unique.

Also:

> Writing online is so nearly effortless that reading (not to mention reflection, deliberation and thought) has become a chore in comparison. It's easier to jot off a patronizing, indignant or self-aggrandizing missive than it is to take the trouble to read the whole article or give fair consideration to the author's perspective. Thus the vicious circle sets in…

Lou Montulli gave us the solution years ago. Perl, Python<blink>,</blink> and Ruby.

'... and there is a compelling sense that it's a diminishing fraction.'

There is a compelling sense? I had to reread that a few times to try and make sense of it. Awkward, at the least.

I've always used the Oxford comma when confusion/misunderstandings of a list could occur. That may or may not be Oxford comma, but it is how AP guides it, IIRC

anyway, i can't help thinking this forms such a powerful combo with another post very close in time... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5247237

1 - I use an Oxford comma 2 - WTF are we talking about Oxford commas?

W == Why, as in, "Why the fuck?".

The traditional meaning of WTF used in that sentence is perfectly fine internet grammar.

Vim or Emacs?

"And while there are many Americans who care deeply about their beloved comma, in the UK (outside of the OUP) it's rarely used."

The British call drunk driving "drink driving", which is nonsensical. Based on this fact alone, the rest of the English-speaking world should disregard their writing patterns when determining correct usage.

Considering that you needn't be drunk to be intoxicated enough to be dangerous behind the wheel, I'd say "drink driving" might be the better name.

Ice skating.

"Drunk driving" is nonsensical; the people doing it aren't driving drunks, they're driving cars. It's almost as if "drink driving" and "drunk driving" aren't actually meant to be literal descriptions of an act but are a linguistic shorthand commonly used to refer to a situation.

While I don't want to take an unfunny joke I made in the Hacker News comments too far and am sorry for hurting any British people's feelings, "drunk driving" does make sense as a literal description of an act, unlike "drink driving". "Drunk" is an adjective which modifies "driving" (which is used as a noun in this case).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com