Oxford Comma.
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- yurimon-7
English, my favorite subject.
- if it is, you're not doing very wellBuddhaHat
- ^Continuity
- sarahfailin-3
It works better in some situations than others.
For lunch I had orange juice, peanut butter and jelly.
Since the last two are paired, it works not to separate them with a comma.
- Knuckleberry0
FOR (all caps)
- nocomply2
100% for it.
I once had a client who was against it and thought that its usage was grammatically incorrect. I had paid a copywriter to write most of his website copy, and I had to go back and manually remove all instances of the Oxford comma throughout his content. Kinda brutal and painstaking.
- drgs-3
its the ugliest of all grammar rules, correct or not
- drgs0
If Ayn Rand and God are actually my parents, why would there be a comma after "my parents" to begin with?
In all European languages, except English, the decoration is then simply:
This book is dedicated to my parents Ayn Rand and God.If Ayn Rand and God are not my parents, you list them as any other items:
This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.Why is this broken in English? Why do you solve unnecessary commas with more commas? In no other Germanic language has this ever been an issue
- This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.Gnash
- What would you write if Ayn and God were in fact the names ofyour parents?drgs
- You can always try Chinese?detritus
- this: This book is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.Gnash
- Why the comma after parents?drgs
- ^ because it indicates that what follows the comma belongs to the noun preceding itGnash
- Howis it not clear without the comma? you dont write "dedicated to my mother, Ayn"drgs
- English is a fluid mongrel - do what the fuck you like, as long as it makes sense. The Oxford comma does help differentiate though.detritus
- i_monk1
Can you think of an example using the Oxford comma that produces confusion?
- "Those at the ceremony were the commodore, the fleet captain, the donor of the cup, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Jones."Krassy
- ^ makes it sound like Mr. Smith was the donor of the cup, which he's not.Krassy
- ^ that's not the fault of the comma, but of the structure of the sentence. rewriting it would clarifyGnash
- "Those at the ceremony were Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, the commodore, the fleet captain, and the donor of the cup.Gnash
- ^ not if listing the attendees is important.Krassy
- Mentioning the Commodore first is more important than mentioning the fleet captain, which in turn is more important than mentioning the donor of the cup, etc.Krassy
- Reading that I wouldn't assume Mr Smith was the donor.i_monk
- HAYZ1LLLA1
Against
- renderedred0
As a son of an English teacher I'm all for it.