Grammar nazis vindicated! A court’s decision in a Maine labor dispute hinged on the absence of an Oxford comma

March 16, 2017, 08:01 PM

TomS

quote:
Originally posted by jhe888:
quote:
Originally posted by Paten:
Shouldn't you just get paid overtime for every hour that is worked over 40 hours in a week? Why would there be exceptions to that?

You have to ask the Maine lege about that.

But this ruling is deeply satisfying. Now we get to back to the trial court and get a lot of evidence about what the lege meant - testimony from drafters, perhaps, hearing transcripts, conference committee notes . . .

Billable hours...

March 16, 2017, 08:50 PM

Floyd D. Barber

March 16, 2017, 08:57 PM

jprebb

I've always used the Oxford comma as well.

But...how do we feel about 2 spaces between sentences???

JP

March 16, 2017, 08:57 PM

sigfreund

And Hess wouldn’t have spelled the plural of Nazi as “nazi’s.”

March 16, 2017, 09:07 PM

Balzé Halzé

quote:
Originally posted by sigfreund:
And Hess wouldn’t have spelled the plural of Nazi as “nazi’s.”

Haha, I thought the same thing.

March 16, 2017, 09:23 PM

PPGMD

I am surprised how few people use the Oxford comma, it was how I was taught to end lists.

And it seems that it is supported by all but the newspaper style guides.

March 16, 2017, 11:03 PM

Hound Dog

quote:
Originally posted by jprebb:
I've always used the Oxford comma as well.

But...how do we feel about 2 spaces between sentences???

JP

Sentence. Period. Space. Space. Next letter of new sentence.

Anything else is wrong.

March 16, 2017, 11:10 PM

hrcjon

The actual point of this to me is that drafting of statues matters. The courts get to settle disputes that simply should not exist. This is an incredible court case about the most mundane mistake of drafting. The vast majority of Supreme court cases are of the same type...what did the statue mean.
We need to impress upon all our legislators that real effort needs to go in making sure the drafting does what you want rather then just rushing to get something on the table.

March 17, 2017, 12:15 AM

911Boss

quote:
Originally posted by PPGMD:
I am surprised how few people use the Oxford comma, it was how I was taught to end lists.

And it seems that it is supported by all but the newspaper style guides.

FAKE NEWS!!!!!

March 17, 2017, 12:48 AM

Tubetone

Isn't the question one of punctuation, not grammar?

What was the legislature's intent?

Here is a write-up about a comma question that divided the Supreme Court of the United States: LINK

Even Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer couldn't agree. (Lockhart v. United States) Should "Kagan" have a comma after the name?

March 17, 2017, 12:51 AM

911Boss

I learned about the importance of the Oxford comma from a Washington gun law case.

There was some confusion about whether you had to have your carry gun ON your person while legally carrying in your vehicle <or> if you could carry it off body in your vehicle. Washington State law reads:

RCW 9.41.050
Carrying firearms.
...
(2)(a) A person shall not carry or place a loaded pistol in any vehicle unless the person has a license to carry a concealed pistol and:
(i) The pistol is on the licensee's person,
(ii) the licensee is within the vehicle at all times that the pistol is there, or
(iii) the licensee is away from the vehicle and the pistol is locked within the vehicle and concealed from view from outside the vehicle... (emphasis added)

If I recall correctly (has been over 20 years ago...) some of the local jurisdictions believed the "and" at the end of (a) applied to the "list" items following it and that the RCW then required both (i) AND (ii) in order to comply. One of the local PD cited someone who had a CPL, was in their vehicle with a loaded handgun but had it sitting in the front passenger seat, off of the licensee's person.

Common sense would suggest that if both were required, then there was no need to even note list item (ii) as it would be a redundant statement (to carry a loaded gun in a car you have to have the loaded gun on you AND you have to be in the car).

The argument against this thought was the "and" prefacing the list joined the requirement the 2(a) statement with any one of the listed items with the Oxford comma preceding "or" at the end of (ii) applying to any of the the three situations (i), (ii), and (iii) in effect to mean the person had to be licensed AND This, OR this, OR this instead of the police/prosecutors assertion that the law required the person be licensed AND This AND this, OR this...

Lots and lots of argument over it on the, then just emerging, interweb message boards and the court ended up ruling that the comma before the "or" applied the "or" argument to the entire list of options and was not applicable to just the final list item.

March 17, 2017, 09:00 AM

Dallas239

This is hardly the first time. I'm all about the serial comma, and no one has ever shown me a sentence that's more clear without it. But here I am afraid the court is wrong. I don't see the ambiguity. If the last two items are read together, there's a missing conjunction, and the sentence as a whole is incorrect.

(I haven't read the opinion yet, so maybe the court addressed that.)

"I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here." -- Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address, Jan. 11, 1989

Si vis pacem para bellum
There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
Feeding Trolls Since 1995

March 17, 2017, 10:29 AM

jprebb

quote:
Originally posted by Dallas239:
This is hardly the first time. I'm all about the serial comma, and no one has ever shown me a sentence that's more clear without it. But here I am afraid the court is wrong. I don't see the ambiguity. If the last two items are read together, there's a missing conjunction, and the sentence as a whole is incorrect.

(I haven't read the opinion yet, so maybe the court addressed that.)

The part of the law in question reads "packing for shipment or distribution". To me, I would understand that to mean packing, be it for shipment or distribution, does not qualify for overtime, which is the argument the drivers made.

If the law had the serial comma it would read "packing for shipment, or distribution" in which case distribution would now be an activity ineligible for overtime.

JP

March 17, 2017, 10:31 AM

jprebb

quote:
Originally posted by Hound Dog:
quote:
Originally posted by jprebb:
I've always used the Oxford comma as well.

But...how do we feel about 2 spaces between sentences???

JP

Sentence. Period. Space. Space. Next letter of new sentence.

Anything else is wrong.

I agree 100%. Sometimes I inherit documents written by younger engineers and I have to go through and put double spaces between sentences.

JP

March 17, 2017, 09:44 PM

9mmepiphany

quote:
Originally posted by jprebb:
I agree 100%. Sometimes I inherit documents written by younger engineers and I have to go through and put double spaces between sentences.

JP

That is pretty dated usage.

The current norm is to only have a single space separating a period from the beginning of the next sentence.

The change came about as most folks are now typing on computers

March 17, 2017, 09:52 PM

Hound Dog

quote:
Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:

That is pretty dated usage.

The current norm is to only have a single space separating a period from the beginning of the next sentence.

The change came about as most folks are now typing on computers

Well, I don't see a compelling reason to change it. And I am a pretty "black and white" person when it comes to these things. I do not often eagerly accept change, either.

And get those darned kids off my lawn while you're at it. . .

March 17, 2017, 09:55 PM

Balzé Halzé

quote:
Originally posted by 9mmepiphany:
quote:
Originally posted by jprebb:
I agree 100%. Sometimes I inherit documents written by younger engineers and I have to go through and put double spaces between sentences.

JP

That is pretty dated usage.

The current norm is to only have a single space separating a period from the beginning of the next sentence.

The change came about as most folks are now typing on computers

Yeah, I believe the last time I routinely used the double space was in highschool when I did all my typed reports on a word processor. It was how I was taught too, but admittedly, I haven't used it in over a decade.