Oxford/Harvard comma

[Dave M]

I'm surprised, Tone, that those budgeting had one department called "Parks", one department called "Recreation" - and another called "Parks and Recreation" (to which half the budget was mistakenly given). They'd have problems of ambiguity rather beyond what commas would do for them ...

[Dave M]

Pan-fried: as opposed to fried on a griddle, as Barry says, and as opposed to fried in a vat.

The menu items are a lovely example of why we need, when we encouter all these "ands", "withs" and other associations, to use semi-colons between (and then worry about Oxford semi-colons, of course). I will agree that once we've moved over to semi-colons to clear the ambiguity, the way we'd SAY the sentence carefully leads me to use the final semicolon - we're into "nuance" territory!

[osric]

" Sadly we have recently lost Sunny, and Eddie and Monty have reacted badly."

That wouldn't be a splice comma, would it? a splice comma replaces a conjunction, whereas this one just reinforces "and".

[Paul Doherty]

And isn't it a "comma splice"?

[osric]

That's the fella, Paul.

[Sue M-V]

On the subject of semi-colons, which we were for a minute there, I had been halping my daughter with a school assignment, in the form of an original fairy tale. It was a good idea, because it helped the pupils to understand the conventions of such things. She was to write her own mock-traditional fairly tale.

I advised her mainly about the punctuation, since this is her (slightly) weak point. When she came home from school with it she said that the teacher had told her to remove all the semi-colons because they weren't used in such writing.

I was rather surprised. Should semi-colons be reserved for only formal writing? obviously I don't think so, but I've been wrong before! What do you all think?

[Verbivore]

I'll admit to bias - the semicolon is possibly my favourite mark - and that most avoided-because-not-understood by many others. That said, I don't recall using any in my shopping lists ... .

Perhaps the age of the pupils dictated a degree of sentence-structure simplicity (even if only for the perceived or projected readership) that precluded the semicolon? Only guessing ... .

[Paul Doherty]

Or is it that fairy tales, by their nature, are meant to be simply, if cunningly, written? I suspect books for younger children don't use many semicolons, so I possible tend to agree with the teacher.

[Dave M]

I don't think it's that semicolons themselves that should not be seen in fairy tales; it's the sort of long and complex sentence that requires them!

(Failytales are simple to understand. They have short sentences with easy meaning. The naughty semicolon tried to get in, but wasn't wanted. And they all lived happily ever after.)

[Tone]

Dave M,
>I'm surprised, Tone, that those budgeting had one department called ...<

I was only quoting.

Of course, the other (well known) example is:

I dedicate this book to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.
I dedicate this book to my parents, Ayn Rand, and God.

Tone

[Dave M]

Countered, though, by the example (was it Paul's?):

He wrote to the Chairman, John Smith, and me. (Ambiguous.)
He wrote to the Chairman, John Smith and me. (Not an Oxford comma, and NOT ambiguous.)

[Sue M-V]

I don't think it's that semicolons themselves that should not be seen in fairy tales; it's the sort of long and complex sentence that requires them!

Point taken. I can't remember the exact context now, but I think it was in extended lists - there were several people who had do do a variety of tasks. Each item in the list would have been too short for its own sentence, I felt. The teacher turned the semi-colons into commas, which made the whole thing very rambling.

This particular fairy story seems to be turning into a three volume novel, so I'm not sure the usual rules apply!

Sue

[Tone]

>He wrote to the Chairman, John Smith, and me. (Ambiguous.)
He wrote to the Chairman, John Smith and me. (Not an Oxford comma, and NOT ambiguous.)<

First one badly worded. Use either:
He wrote to the Chairman, to John Smith, and to me.
He wrote to the Chairman (John Smith) and me.

Second one is ambiguous because it immediately makes me wonder if it is a typo of "Chairmen".

Tone

[Alan Palmer]

Sue,

I was slightly surprised that semi-colons should be banned from fairy tales, although I do see why the teacher might want to avoid the use of long and complex sentences. Had your child been taught the use of semi-colons yet?

I would have thought that, since many fairy tales were written/translated by the Victorians, there would be a plethora; their use was much more common then. However, out of curiosity I looked up a translation of Grimm's Fairy Tales and conducted a page search for semi-colons in the first ten pages. Only one tale (the first) contained one semi-colon.

[Pete]

May 29, 2008 11:09:15 GMT Tone said:

>He wrote to the Chairman, John Smith, and me. (Ambiguous.)
He wrote to the Chairman, John Smith and me. (Not an Oxford comma, and NOT ambiguous.)<

First one badly worded. Use either:
He wrote to the Chairman, to John Smith, and to me.
He wrote to the Chairman (John Smith) and me.

Second one is ambiguous because it immediately makes me wonder if it is a typo of "Chairmen".

Tone

Tone, I agree with you. I often add an extra "to", or other appropriate preposition, rather than relying on context or 'reading in', when there is any chance of amiguity.