<story><title> Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/oxford-comma-lawsuit.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>UweSchmidt</author><text>Not a native speaker, but if Ayn Rand is your mother I&amp;#x27;d blame the first comma for the ambiguity.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;To my mother Ayn Rand, and God.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>jakelazaroff</author><text>It can create ambiguity as well as remove it, depending on which terms can be appositives to other terms. Classic example:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.&amp;quot; (ambiguous without the comma)&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God.&amp;quot; (ambiguous with the comma)</text></item><item><author>mercer</author><text>Is there &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; good argument for eschewing the extra comma when it clearly disambiguates the meaning of the sentence?&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t think of one, but I also find it (slightly) difficult to believe that anyone smart enough to write an article would insist on ambiguity for no good reason...&lt;p&gt;EDIT: to disambiguate my own comment: with &amp;#x27;when&amp;#x27; I meant &amp;#x27;in cases where leaving out the comma causes ambiguity&amp;#x27;. Personally I try to prioritize clarity so sometimes I will use an extra comma, and sometimes I won&amp;#x27;t.</text></item><item><author>leephillips</author><text>&amp;quot;omitting the serial comma is fairly archaic at this point&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Wish that were true! But many news organization style guides condemn the Oxford comma, with sometimes disastrous results:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.chronicle.com&amp;#x2F;blogs&amp;#x2F;linguafranca&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;for-want-of-an-oxford-comma&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.chronicle.com&amp;#x2F;blogs&amp;#x2F;linguafranca&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;for-w...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>weeksie</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;ve ever heard an impassioned argument against the Oxford Comma. I mean, I have no problem with it, but there seems to be a belief that this is a less filling&amp;#x2F;tastes great holy war, but really, omitting the serial comma is fairly archaic at this point. At least in my experience. Sometimes lists need one, sometimes they don&amp;#x27;t. At this point in the evolution of our written language that should be a fairly unambiguous proposition.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SamBam</author><text>But that&amp;#x27;s just grammatically wrong, in English.&lt;p&gt;Appositive clauses require a comma. Forgetting God, you can just look at the sentence &amp;quot;To my mother, Ayn Rand.&amp;quot; We put a comma there because the object of the sentence is &amp;quot;mother,&amp;quot; and then we&amp;#x27;re clarifying who &amp;quot;mother&amp;quot; is. We&amp;#x27;d only omit the comma if &amp;quot;Mother Ayn Rand&amp;quot; were a noun phrase all by itself, like &amp;quot;Father John.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Similarly: &amp;quot;This is to my arch-nemesis, Ayn Rand, who always doubted me.&amp;quot; The commas are necessary there for the same reason.&lt;p&gt;(How did Ayn Rand enter this discussion..?)</text></comment>
<story><title> Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/oxford-comma-lawsuit.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>UweSchmidt</author><text>Not a native speaker, but if Ayn Rand is your mother I&amp;#x27;d blame the first comma for the ambiguity.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;To my mother Ayn Rand, and God.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>jakelazaroff</author><text>It can create ambiguity as well as remove it, depending on which terms can be appositives to other terms. Classic example:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;To my parents, Ayn Rand and God.&amp;quot; (ambiguous without the comma)&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God.&amp;quot; (ambiguous with the comma)</text></item><item><author>mercer</author><text>Is there &lt;i&gt;any&lt;/i&gt; good argument for eschewing the extra comma when it clearly disambiguates the meaning of the sentence?&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t think of one, but I also find it (slightly) difficult to believe that anyone smart enough to write an article would insist on ambiguity for no good reason...&lt;p&gt;EDIT: to disambiguate my own comment: with &amp;#x27;when&amp;#x27; I meant &amp;#x27;in cases where leaving out the comma causes ambiguity&amp;#x27;. Personally I try to prioritize clarity so sometimes I will use an extra comma, and sometimes I won&amp;#x27;t.</text></item><item><author>leephillips</author><text>&amp;quot;omitting the serial comma is fairly archaic at this point&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Wish that were true! But many news organization style guides condemn the Oxford comma, with sometimes disastrous results:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.chronicle.com&amp;#x2F;blogs&amp;#x2F;linguafranca&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;for-want-of-an-oxford-comma&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.chronicle.com&amp;#x2F;blogs&amp;#x2F;linguafranca&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;12&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;for-w...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>weeksie</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think I&amp;#x27;ve ever heard an impassioned argument against the Oxford Comma. I mean, I have no problem with it, but there seems to be a belief that this is a less filling&amp;#x2F;tastes great holy war, but really, omitting the serial comma is fairly archaic at this point. At least in my experience. Sometimes lists need one, sometimes they don&amp;#x27;t. At this point in the evolution of our written language that should be a fairly unambiguous proposition.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>savanaly</author><text>The problem isn&amp;#x27;t that there doesn&amp;#x27;t exist a sentence that maps onto only the meaning that Ayn Rand is your mother, it&amp;#x27;s that there exists a sentence which one could reasonably arrive at that maps on to both the meaning where Ayn Rand is your mother and the meaning where she&amp;#x27;s not.</text></comment>