Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language
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@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
Ambiguous: I invited my parents, Alice and Bob
Clear: I invited my parents, Alice, and Bob
Beyond that it just makes more sense syntactically if you think about the function of a comma.
QED
I invited my parents, Alice and Bob. Next?
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I used to be a stalwart anti Oxford comma person but came around because a proofreader friend of mine is basically my Yoda of grammar and convinced me. I got used to it.
There’s also the fact that being anti is a minority opinion and it just gets annoying as fuck always having to hear people give you the spiel.
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@Matt you’ve played into the problem. Because I know you don’t use an Oxford comma, your intent is ambiguous. Are you saying you invited your parents, whose names are Alice and Bob, or are you saying you invited your parents along with non-parents Alice and Bob?
You’ve just reiterated my point here.
Think it, be it.
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Generally, arbitrary exceptions generate confusion. That’s another reason skipping the final serial comma in a list doesn’t make syntactic sense. It’s just another stupid thing to have to think about. I’m all about simplicity.
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this is a case where no comma is best. -
@Eza not in our house and I’ve not heard anyone else using it either.
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@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
@Matt you’ve played into the problem. Because I know you don’t use an Oxford comma, your intent is ambiguous. Are you saying you invited your parents, whose names are Alice and Bob, or are you saying you invited your parents along with non-parents Alice and Bob?
You’ve just reiterated my point here.
If my parents were Alice and Bob I would have used a colon, but I used a comma correctly instead. Much like I did just now before the coordinating conjunction where it actually belongs.
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@Eza said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
for the Brits do you call a tv remote a doofer?
In my house, by the time either Mrs H or myself are thinking about watching any TV, we are too mentally drained from jobs and putting Baby H to bed to call any object, person, location, mineral, category, etc, anything other than "thingy".
Example sentences which can be uttered and understood in my house after 8pm:
"Pass me that thingy."
"Next thingy we've got that thingy with thingy and thingy."
"My thingy has been acting up lately, I might make a thingy to see my thingy."When we are mentally cognisant though, no, we don't call TV remotes doofers...
Having said that, I note that it is the top-rated definition for "doofer" on urban dictionary, so there must be some truth to it.
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@pechelman said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
Can't help but think this is a softball for a joke?
Ambiguous and potentially very concerning; Matt likes pegging, his jeans and his dog.
Clear but still a little concerning; Matt likes pegging, his jeans, and his dog.
Again, a colon would clear this up, not an unnecessary comma.
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@Matt said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
@pechelman said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
Can't help but think this is a softball for a joke?
Ambiguous and potentially very concerning; Matt likes pegging, his jeans and his dog.
Clear but still a little concerning; Matt likes pegging, his jeans, and his dog.
Again, a colon would clear this up, not an unnecessary comma.
Assuming you mean the punctuation, and understanding that this is a flawed example, how would a colon be helpful in resolving ambiguity here? All that does is introduce the list; any ambiguity from skipping the final serial comma is unresolved.
The point in consistency isn’t that the final comma is strictly necessary to understand a given sentence. It’s that the consistency means that when sentences would become ambiguous without the final comma you know exactly what is meant. That’s why the AP approach of only including the last comma when needed to disambiguate a sentence’s meaning is a flawed approach. A global standard puts an end to the problem.
Think it, be it.
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@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
A global standard puts an end to the problem.
Fascist
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The point is that the punctuation is necessary. It’s a single character. The counter arguments are nonsense like “restructure your sentence “ instead of just documenting language as it is spoken in text.
Anyway, I win
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@pechelman said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
a colon would clear up confusion about pegging
and pegging your colon could possibly clear up all confusions here
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@mclaincausey said in Nuances and Idiosyncrasies of the English Language:
Assuming you mean the punctuation
I didnt mean punctuation in this case. endo got the double entendre it seems
although I think “doofer” could be any kind of object you are trying to think of the name of and have momentarily forgot.. if that makes sense 