Warrigal
SF VIP
- Location
- Sydney, Australia
This story demonstrates why proof reading is important.
When I was at school, the serial comma was never used in Australia and it is only recently that I have come to realise its value.
Any observations or further examples.
The case of the $13 million comma and why grammarians are rejoicing
Portland-based company Oakhurst Dairy will potentially owe $US10 million ($13 million) to 75 milk-truck drivers in the US state of Maine because of a missing comma in a legal clause.
Last week, Judge David J Barron upheld an appeal in a class-action lawsuit, opening his opinion with: "For want of a comma, we have this case."
Three dairy-truck drivers sued Oakhurst Dairy in 2014 for four years of unpaid overtime wages.
The case hinged on the missing comma after "packing for shipment" in the following clause of Maine state law, which lists exemptions from overtime:
- The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:
- Agricultural produce
- Meat and fish products; and
- Perishable foods
The missing comma, in this case, would have separated "packing for shipment" and "distribution" into distinct activities, both exempt from overtime.
Without the comma, the drivers argued, the law referred only to the act of packing, for the purpose of either shipping or distributing.
There are other grammatical issues with this clause (neatly unpacked in more detail by Mary Norris in The New Yorker), but David Webbert, a lawyer for the drivers, told The New York Times: "That comma would have sunk our ship".
The contentious comma
This contentious comma is the serial comma, often called the "Oxford comma" and in some circles the "Harvard comma".
It comes before the final "and" or "or" in a series (a list of three or more items).
For example, "Stone fruits include apricots, plums, and nectarines".
Although some think it is clunky, the Maine case strikes a blow for the importance of clarity.
Consider this particularly spectacular example, supposedly from a TV listing in The Times:
"By train, plane and sedan chair, Peter Ustinov retraces a journey made by Mark Twain a century ago. The highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.There are two lists in this example that omit the serial comma, although only the second really demands it to eliminate ambiguity.mg:
(It's worth noting that, even with an additional comma that would prevent Nelson Mandela from being a dildo collector, the sentence is so poorly phrased he could conceivably still be an 800-year-old demigod.)
Maine legislature drafting guidelines actually recommend against using the serial comma, advising that any confusing sentence be entirely rewritten.
But the appellate judge was obviously a fan, saying: "We would be remiss not to note the clarifying virtues of serial commas that other jurisdictions recognise".
He elaborated by stating that both chambers of the federal Congress warned against omitting the serial comma "to prevent any misreading that the last item is part of the preceding one", and said that only seven of the American states (including Maine) "either did not require or expressly prohibited the use of the serial comma".
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-21/the-case-of-the-$13-million-comma/8372956
When I was at school, the serial comma was never used in Australia and it is only recently that I have come to realise its value.
Any observations or further examples.
