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Not using the Oxford comma should be grounds for divorce/termination
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Banned
I've heard about this and it pisses me off. The people in publishing and writing who actually know what they are talking about advise using the Oxford comma so someone should fix those guides.
Hyperactivity
Banned
Obligatory:
Semicolon has to link two complete and related complete sentence structures iirc, aka the part after the semicolon is a subject verb etc.
If you mean to say your parents are Ayn Rand and God, then I think you could use a colon
)
Semicolon has to link two complete and related complete sentence structures iirc, aka the part after the semicolon is a subject verb etc.
If you mean to say your parents are Ayn Rand and God, then I think you could use a colon
)itwasTuesday
He wasn't alone.
Oh, you're one of those fake grammar people. Neat.
Semicolon has to link two complete and related complete sentence structures iirc, aka the part after the semicolon is a subject verb etc.
If you mean to say your parents are Ayn Rand and God, then I think you could use a colon
Not necessarily. When you're listing three lists, you'd use both commas and semicolons.
Like blah blah blah a, b, c; 1, 2, 3; and X, Y, Z.
Fix that for you.
davepoobond
you can't put a price on sparks
i always use oxford comma. because "peanut butter and jelly" is one item, and if you use it in a list, not using oxford comma is confusing.
also, didnt the people who established the oxford comma stop supporting it?
also, didnt the people who established the oxford comma stop supporting it?
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Nah, if you know how to properly parse a sentence both make complete sense. A comma is not a colon. In Sweden we're taught not to use it, and we seem to be doing fine (note that that doesn't mean you can never have a comma before an "and", it's just when listing items and such).
You're right about double spaces after periods though. Just ridiculous. I hadn't even heard of that craziness before I read about it here some years ago, I think. I've never heard of anyone doing it here in Sweden.
Actually, that's not how you use a semicolon (most people don't know how to use them, so don't feel too bad); it should be a colon.
You're right about double spaces after periods though. Just ridiculous. I hadn't even heard of that craziness before I read about it here some years ago, I think. I've never heard of anyone doing it here in Sweden.
Actually, that's not how you use a semicolon (most people don't know how to use them, so don't feel too bad); it should be a colon.
GifGafIsTheBestGaf
Member
i don;t feel comfortable writing it like that
FTFY
Oh, and you make weird threads.
FTFY
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Now that's just the worst. Objectively inferior way of writing out the time. And let's not even get into how your day ends with 11 pm, the next day starts at 12 am, and then you go to 1 am. WHAT?! It's a new day, reset your damn clocks. It's like if the last day of the year was Dec 31st, and then the first day of the new year was Jan 32nd. Really, it's that crazy. There just isn't any logic to it. Like how you measure things in arbitrary units that you can't do regular math on, or how your week starts with Sunday even though everyone agrees that Saturday and Sunday make up the weekend.
So much to fix, America. Better get started.
Vincent Alexander
Member
I seriously want to know where our teachers even learned this from. Whence did the no comma come from?
Khalifa Jayy
Banned
I'm in the same boat on both things. Not really to the extreme extent you speak of, but the comma is necessary, require, and appreciated.
Commas confuse the hell out of me too often, but shouldn't it be "universities, so fix"?
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
False. Ayn Rand IS God.
jim-jam bongs
Member
Oxford commas have a place, but your example is terrible. And any places where an Oxford comma would aid clarity are better served by judicious usage of semicolons; using commas to separate disparate clauses is lazy, foolish and wrong.
Underrated post right here. Fun fact - my main employer is Oxford University Press. No one's ever appeared this bothered about the comma though.
AnathemicOne
Banned
I'm so confused, I've always assumed/been taught the Oxford comma is the only way. Why is this up for debate and more importantly where? Backwater places in the US (ie Texas and/or the South)?
Regulus Tera
Romanes Eunt Domus
It took me a very long time to get used to the Oxford comma when learning English because Spanish doesn't have anything of the like when using "and". I still believe it's kinda superfluous.
They're both acceptable although sometimes the Oxford comma can provide clarity as shown. It just looks fairly gross.
Realistically though as pointed out you would put a colon after parents in the sentence to make it a list of the parties involved. So, the only folks that would need the additional clarity are the ones that don't know English as well as they think.
AnathemicOne
Banned
How does clarity equate to "looking gross"? Are people that bothered by punctuation marks? Christ, again, why is this up for debate and where/when did it start? I'm genuinely curious now and a bit more grateful for my education on military bases.
Hell do people not read books? I'm pretty sure I've never came across a book that didn't use the Oxford comma in writing out lists and the like.
Kenshin001
Member
You'd have to be a moron to think the person's parents are Ayn Rand and God or that the stripper's names are JFK and Stalin. Seems like a complete non issue.
Even if the sentence were "I'd like to thank my parents, John, and Mary" the reader would still be confused if the person were referring to 4 different people or their parents were named John and Mary.
Even if the sentence were "I'd like to thank my parents, John, and Mary" the reader would still be confused if the person were referring to 4 different people or their parents were named John and Mary.
not psycho
Member
As mentioned on the page you link to, the oxford comma can create ambiguity.
To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God.
Not having the comma in the first one could make it sound like your parents are Ayn Rand and God. Having the comma in the second one could make it sound like your mother is Ayn Rand. There should be no rule; you should do what makes more sense for the sentence.
To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God.
Not having the comma in the first one could make it sound like your parents are Ayn Rand and God. Having the comma in the second one could make it sound like your mother is Ayn Rand. There should be no rule; you should do what makes more sense for the sentence.
I don't really understand the Oxford comma. At least when used in a "this, that, and those things" way. I never saw it used in our Finnish English textbooks. Isn't it redundant? There's already an "and" there to separate the second to last & last things in a list, why does it need another comma? If anything, the Oxford comma is what makes it look super messy. It looks ugly. It's not needed. I'm sure there are some instances where it can be useful, but when just listing things in a simple way, I don't see why it's needed.
Well, ", and" just isn't that great a look. It looks odd to have a piece of punctuation hanging out solo. In the other instances, it's intended as a separator but in the case of ", and" the "and" is already intended as the separator so having a second one looks a bit weird. A better writer would provide the additional clarity and make the sentence flow better by putting the plural at the end of the list ex. God, Ayn Rand and my parents.
Mostly from news writing. Even Oxford won't use the Oxford comma in their media releases unless it is used to prevent ambiguity.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I feel like no one country has this right
I think we should use:
-Oxford commas
-American spellings of words like "color"
-The metric system
-24 hour clock
-day/month/year
-we should be able to marry our attractive cousins
I think we should use:
-Oxford commas
-American spellings of words like "color"
-The metric system
-24 hour clock
-day/month/year
-we should be able to marry our attractive cousins
I actually read that somewhere, but I don't remember where so I didn't want to bring it up. I use the Oxford comma all the time for consistency.
AnathemicOne
Banned
Bruh, I was raised in US military bases overseas and Oxford comma was standard/mandatory. This thread is making me scream internally, I need to go ly dow
There's a couple theiores behind it. One being that every comma was extra space lost on the page. Another was thhe belief that it's only needed to end ambiguity and that news should be as grammatically simple as possible. Now, it's part of every major news writing manual in the United States and the UK.
brianmcdoogle
Member
The Oxford comma remains essential in precise communication.
You need to understand that when you write, it's intended to mirror how some would speak. So, when you put a comma, that is intended to indicate where someone would take a beat with normal speech. The reason the Oxford comma is not considered necessary most of the time is because a normal person isn't going to take an extra beat just because the list looks weird in writing. Oxford comma is a safety net for your poor ability to provide clarity to a reader.
Obviously the AP and other news organizations aren't concerned about their writers being bad at English although occasional mistakes do happen of course. So, they're not going to make it a mandatory part of their style unless the writer just doesn't feel the list can be rewritten differently and the clarification is needed.
Realistically, the Oxford comma should never be needed. So, it seems like the military educators just thought ya'll were dummies and couldn't grasp the concept and so just taught the safety net as standard.
Robot Pants
Member
Im in 100% agreement.
brianmcdoogle
Member
I actually don't know if my introduction to the Oxford comma at an early age was true, but I was told it was based on a real court case where a man left money to "his son, wife and brother". The lawyer successfully argued that he meant to give 50% to his son and 25% to his wife and 25% to his brother because of that comma. Basically, the comma acts a mathematical separator where it distinguish between multiple clauses.
To separate three equal clauses from two clause containing three pieces, a comma is needed.
"His son, wife, and brother" is different than "his son, wife and brother"
Just like "1/3rd, 1/3rd, and 1/3rd" is different than "1/2, 1/2 (or 1/4, 1/4).
To separate three equal clauses from two clause containing three pieces, a comma is needed.
"His son, wife, and brother" is different than "his son, wife and brother"
Just like "1/3rd, 1/3rd, and 1/3rd" is different than "1/2, 1/2 (or 1/4, 1/4).
That's not an American thing though, it's something common to most English speaking countries.
And yes it's completely inferior to the 24 hour format.
He must have been a hell of a bullshitter because there is no ambiguity to that sentence.
liliththepale
Banned
If your sentence doesn't make sense spoken aloud, then it needs to be restructured. In the example sentence about parents, Ayn Rand and God, it would be just as ambiguous spoken aloud as written without the Oxford comma. Therefore it's not the fault of the missing comma, but of the poor phrasing.
And it's honestly not even that confusing. Context cues are everything in language.
And it's honestly not even that confusing. Context cues are everything in language.
SomedayTheFire
Member
If you don't understand a list without the Oxford comma it's your own fault. This coming from someone that does use them.
Opus might want a word with you.
FunkyDealer
Banned
The Oxford comma is stupid, unnecessary and I refuse to acknowledge it. Thug life!
I've also never heard of it before this thread.
This post needs more love.
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