remaining, maintaining.
-
Welcome to the WDWMAGIC.COM Forums!
Please take a look around, and feel free to sign up and join the community.
Disney CMs calling guests " Friends"?
- Thread starter tallica
- Start date
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
Well yeah, of course. My point was that the ambiguity actually causes legal consequences in contracts.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
We’re all here posting, yourself included. That’s sort of the purpose of a discussion forum, including, I’m sure, according to dictionary definitions, regional or otherwise.
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Could you give an actual example? Even as a dedicated user of the Oxford Comma, I’m having trouble imagining a situation where any real ambiguity could arise.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
The main example I know of is actually statutory interpretation rather than contractual, but the same issue can arise in contracts. The statute didn't use an Oxford comma, which led to ambiguity about what exactly was excluded.
"In The Oxford Comma Case, as it has come to be known, truck drivers sued their employer, Oakhurst Dairy, in a class-action lawsuit claiming that they were not exempt from certain overtime laws. The Maine statute at issue in their case states that overtime rules do not apply to:
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.
The question before the Maine appellate court was whether the law intended to exempt distribution of categories one through three, or packing for shipment and distribution of items contained in those three categories. Is packing (for shipment and distribution) a single activity that is exempt from overtime pay? Or are packing and distributing two separate activities, both of which are exempt?
In this case, the delivery drivers distribute perishable foods, but do not pack the boxes. So were distributors entitled to overtime? Or were they were exempt from overtime pay under the text of the statute?
If lawmakers had used an Oxford comma, the statute would have been clear that distribution was an activity that is exempt from overtime pay. But without the comma, the law is ambiguous as to whether distribution is a separate activity, or whether the whole last clause – “packing for shipment or distribution” – is one activity, in which case only people who pack the dairy products are exempt.
Oakhurst Dairy believed it was complying with the law, arguing that distribution was a separate activity and that drivers were exempt from receiving overtime pay. The appellate court disagreed, ruling that because the statute was ambiguous, the drivers were eligible to receive overtime pay. And because Oakhurst Dairy believed it had been complying with the law, the 75 drivers who are plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit could be entitled to approximately $10 million in back pay."
TL;DR: "Packing for shipment or distribution of" can be read as a single clause solely applying to the act of packing, whereas "packing for shipment, or distribution of" clearly delineates between packing as one activity and distribution as a separate activity. Not using the comma created ambiguity, which was grounds for the eventual lawsuit.
Last edited:
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
Thanks! Unless lists in other Maine statutes are written without coordinators, I don’t agree that the sentence is ambiguous without the comma, since “or” is grammatically necessary as the coordinator in this case. That said, I agree the comma would have prevented the issue ever coming to court.
Because English has 'appositives' that are set off from a sentence by commas (although, one could use dashes or parentheses for the same unambiguous effect), the serial comma and its final placement of the "Oxford comma" can always cause ambiguity whether the Oxford comma is used or not. In general, the Oxford comma causes less ambiguity, but does not prevent all ambiguity. See here...
en.wikipedia.org
Serial comma - Wikipedia
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
I disagree that it's not ambiguous. If someone tells you what they meant beforehand, then it obviously makes sense, but without prior knowledge it's easy to read either way. It's really impossible to know if the "or" is supposed to connect shipment and distribution as two separate packing activities or if it's supposed to divide them into two separate activities.
It's also why laws are generally so complicated. People advocate for simple laws, but if they're not written to very specifically lay out exactly what they are intended to do, it leaves them open to interpretation and thus lawsuits.
Generally, when the Oxford comma is not used, it's down to context for reading comprehension (as in the Lady Gaga/Mickey Mouse example posted above, where it's relatively obvious that Lady Gaga and Mickey Mouse aren't the parents) -- which is fine 99% of the time, but it can cause a real problem the other 1%.
Admittedly in the above example the lack of a comma isn't the only potential problem -- if they did intend to separate them into two activities, then a comma should be used for full clarity. If they did not, then the "or distribution" is more or less superfluous to the existing "shipment" usage and only adds unnecessary confusion.
Last edited:
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
I’m a usage nerd, so examples like these are familiar to me. I tend to think they’re manufactured more than they are actual. I would say most people in the UK don’t use Oxford Commas, and I don’t think British communication is any more ambiguous than American as a result.Because English has 'appositives' that are set off from a sentence by commas (although, one could use dashes or parentheses for the same unambiguous effect), the serial comma and its final placement of the "Oxford comma" can always cause ambiguity whether the Oxford comma is used or not. In general, the Oxford comma causes less ambiguity, but does not prevent all ambiguity. See here...
Serial comma - Wikipedia
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
I read it one way only because I assumed that the list should have a coordinator, which in this instance would have to be “or”. If it’s the case that lists in Maine statutes are always or sometimes written without coordinators, then I agree that the meaning is unclear, but my assumption (perhaps an incorrect one) is that coordinators are generally not omitted in legal writing.
UNCgolf
Well-Known Member
The coordinator generally wouldn't be omitted, which is a fair point, but instead of the as-written "The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:" they could have done something like:
"The canning, processing, preserving, marketing, drying, storing, packing for shipment, freezing or distribution of:"
There may still potentially be a legal argument that that's somewhat ambiguous, but it's less ambiguous than the "for shipment or distribution of" pairing because it would be harder to argue that freezing and distribution were supposed to be connected as one activity. That's moving away from the Oxford comma discussion and more about drafting in general, though.
Either way, throwing in the comma removes any doubt, which is what you really want for statutes and contracts.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
Thanks for adding other languages to the discussion.
What is the English word for Spanish word amiga? There isn't one, because the English equivalent does not indicate gender.
Spanish evolved from Latin, as did the other Romance Languages. Languages evolve into different languages in large part, because people continuously come up with new words to better reflect their culture as they change over time.
Spanish has four different words for you. You singular/informal, you singular/polite, you plural/informal (though not used everywhere), and you plural/polite. On top of that, the word amigo itself has different variations for gender.
English is the official language of 67 different countries, but it is not the official language of the United States. The USA does not have an official language.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
But I am not the one who has repeatedly dismissed this discussion as, "an inconsequential gripe." Why participate if you long ago concluded that the concerns raised are inconsequential?
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
The discussion itself is interesting. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think so. The characterisation you quoted was describing some of the complaints about “friend(s)”, not the discussion itself.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
Mind, I have left many threads when I reached the conclusion that the discussion was petty.
So which concerns/criticisms [on the thread topic] do you now find valid?
LittleBuford
Well-Known Member
I find all opinions interesting, though I don’t find some of the arguments against “friend(s)” particularly compelling or valid. I’ve been pretty clear about which arguments those are.
MickeyLuv'r
Well-Known Member
I asked which ones you find valid.
Smiley/OCD
Well-Known Member
Ya Think??? Not Queen’s UK english, NJ english…I’m forgettinaboutit lol
Youse got it, goombah!