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The DU Lounge
Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsAnd then there's the Oxford comma
or serial comma.
Use it when needed for clarity and to avoid ambiguity.
When not needed, don't use it.

Polly Hennessey
(8,052 posts)Oeditpus Rex
(42,402 posts)where there's no ambiguity?
unblock
(55,558 posts)"When there's no ambiguity" can get pretty subjective or context-dependent.
unblock
(55,558 posts)Personally, I always use the Oxford comma. So technically, if I were to write the above statement, it would unambiguously refer to two people: my parents, whose names are bob and Jane.
But generally, the statement is ambiguous if you don't know the style as it relates to the Oxford comma as it could refer to four people.
Oeditpus Rex
(42,402 posts)""I love Bob and Jane, my parents."
erronis
(21,062 posts)Its a shame about it's abuse!
Can't use in DU title's because it confuses the poor encoders/decoders - I guess its a PHP thing.
Bernardo de La Paz
(57,672 posts)Oeditpus Rex
(42,402 posts)about manager "Dave Robert's"?
I sometimes ask them, "Dave Robert's what? And who's Dave Robert?" They never understand that.
I always want to ask people, "What thought process led you to put an apostrophe there?" I'd ask that of a student if I were an English instructor, but not on social media, especially in a thread about baseball.
erronis
(21,062 posts)Roberts's?
PoindexterOglethorpe
(28,039 posts)"The Roberts's car crashed." Although in recent decades even that has become "The Roberts' car crashed."
WestMichRad
(2,530 posts)I learned that the extra s should be omitted
more than 50 years ago.
Thanks for making me feel younger today!
Oeditpus Rex
(42,402 posts)"Roberts'." Or "the Williams'," not "the Williams's" and definitely not "the Williamses'."
"Roberts's is acceptable, but it strikes me as clunky.
malthaussen
(18,281 posts)An " 's" to indicate possession is always correct. There's no need to drop the "s," but writers have gotten progressively lazier over the years.
Fun factoid (if you find this sort of thing fun): the " 's" is a contraction to stand in for "his." In earlier English, possession of something would be indicated by saying (eg) "John, his hat." They decided that was too silly-sounding, and so used the contraction " 's" instead: "John's hat."
And no, they weren't much worried about pronouns in those days.
-- Mal
PoindexterOglethorpe
(28,039 posts)It is abuse. Gotcha.
Harker
(16,745 posts)lpbk2713
(43,228 posts)
erronis
(21,062 posts)Poor people learning English later in life. It's hard enough having been immersed in it. And it keeps changing.
LogDog75
(792 posts)I reviewed enlisted performance reports before they went to the commander for his signature. Formatting had to be correct. Had to be able to quantify and qualify what an individual did. This included listing tree or more related items in a sentence.
One SNCO, same rank as me, argued the coma wasnt necessary anymore before the word and. I told him thats the way the AF writes and pulled out the AF book on writing and showed him where it said that. He had a degree in English and insisted his way was the current way of writing. I returned the performance report to him and told him to do it the way the AF says to do it. He was hot under the collar about it but in the end he complied.
All that over a silly coma. Frankly, on a board like this it really doesnt matter as long as we understand what the person is writing.
Oeditpus Rex
(42,402 posts)An unnecessary Oxford comma isn't "wrong" per se (not "per say" ), but if the phrase or sentence is immediately understandable wihout it, why use it? It looks awkward in such cases.
"The leaders of the three National League divisions are the Dodgers, Phillies and Brewers."
If someone is confused by that because there's no comma before "and"... well, I don't know.
malthaussen
(18,281 posts)Say we have a sequence of individual items that are otherwise unrelated, eg "Dodgers, Phillies, and Braves." That is different from a series of items in which a pair are otherwise related, eg "John, Alfred, and Dick and Jane" where, eg again, Dick and Jane are a married couple or otherwise always spoken of together.
IOW, I submit that omitting the final comma suggests that the last two elements in the sentence are related in some way besides being in the list.
-- Mal
Oeditpus Rex
(42,402 posts)Using a phrase that obviously requires an Oxford comma to make the point that all sentences or phrases with more than three subjects need one.
Did you find my example confusing in any way?
malthaussen
(18,281 posts)I am fully acclimated to the downfall of the English language in the 21st century.
-- Mal
Oeditpus Rex
(42,402 posts)