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What petty hill will you die on? (self.chat)

submitted 1 year ago by thrawn21 to c/chat

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For me I say that a truck with a cab longer than its bed is not a truck, but an SUV with an overgrown bumper.

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[–] VoxAdActa@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/15/health/oxford-comma-maine-court-case-trnd/index.html

[–] MudMan@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

But... that article says the opposite of what it says it says.

I mean, it claims that the problem was the lack of an Oxford comma (in front of and "or", rather than an "and", by the way), but the fact is the ambiguity is caused by the fact that the comma is even an option. The judge is inferring that the comma should have existed and reading the sentence that way.

Notably, if what the writers of the text meant was that "packing for shipment or distribution" is a single clause it also wouldn't have had a comma.

I can't stress this enough, the only reason that case went the way it did is that the Oxford comma exists.