Oxford Comma

[MikeH]

"bacon and eggs" != "bacon, and eggs"

What's the difference between those two things?

[Cort Haus]

I think that if the two things either side of the 'and' have a special relationship, such as bubble-and-squeak, then hyphens are yer man.

[MikeH]

Asher-and-Ben Kenobi

[Asher]

What's the difference between those two things?

How they are spoken. "bacon and eggs" has no pause, "bacon, and eggs" does.

[Cort Haus]

I wouldn't pause between any of them.

Well, you speak so slowly you pause between every letter.

[MikeH]

How they are spoken. "bacon and eggs" has no pause, "bacon, and eggs" does.

So the comma adds a pointless pause and doesn't change the meaning. It's wasting time. Annoying pointless waste of time (in that context, useful in others).

[Tupac Shakur]

So the comma adds a pointless pause and doesn't change the meaning.

It does change the meaning. "Bacon and eggs" sounds like a prepared dish using those two ingredients, while "bacon, and eggs" sounds like a listing of two separate items. Same with "tomato and toast" vs "tomato, and toast".

[MikeH]

A comma before the and at the end of a list looks plain wrong to me. It's definitely not used that way in British English, and wasn't taught that way when I learnt ~25 years ago.

Ok. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...a-common-sense

It turned out that a writing guide produced some time ago by the university's public affairs directorate for press releases and internal communication had advised: "As a general rule, do not use the serial/Oxford comma: so write 'a, b and c' not 'a, b, and c'."

It added, however, that such a comma might help clarify a sentence or resolve ambiguity, especially where an item in the list was already joined by 'and'. This sensible advice is similar to the Guardian style guide approach: "Straightforward lists (he ate ham, eggs and chips) do not need a final comma, but sometimes it can help the reader (he ate cereal, kippers, bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade, and tea).

That's exactly when I think it should be used, not by default on a list. Ugh.

It is a US/UK difference and as always in those things U SUK

[MikeH]

And yes, Canada = United States for this, they are just American wannabes.

[Tupac Shakur]

Well, it's no secret that American English is more logical and refined than British English. That being said, I certainly don't begrudge you for clinging to your provincial ways.

[MikeH]

Making things easier for foreigners.

[Kitschum]

How can you tell which is easier for foreigners? Regrettably, there's no Oxford comma in Swedish, nor in German, so Brenglish is easier in this respect.

Speaking of which, we should all rejoice the Nazis didn't win that war way back and enforce German comma rules on the world. Like these ones that I yanked off Wikipädia:


Gemeinsam ist ihnen, dass ein Komma schwächer trennt als ein Punkt und dass ein Komma wichtig für den Sinn eines Satzes sein kann.
The rules have in common, that a comma is a weaker separator than a full stop and that a comma can be important for the meaning of a clause.

Basically, Germans write like this: I thought, that the movie sucked.


„Dein Zeugnis war besser, als ich geglaubt hatte.“
Your report was better, than I had thought.


„Alle rannten weg, als der Untote aus dem Grabe stieg.“
Everybody ran away, as the Undead rose from the grave.


Possible but not obligatory use. Luckily, I don't think it's common because it looks horrendous:

„Uta versuchte(,) zu singen.“
Uta tried(,) to sing.


I understand why this one would be logical with German syntax. It still wouldn't be necessary in English:

„Uta versuchte, nicht das Lied zu singen.“
„Uta versuchte nicht, das Lied zu singen.“
Uta tried, not to sing the song.
Uta tried not, to sing the song. (Uta didn't try to sing the song.)

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kommaregeln

[MikeH]

Was referring to general American simplifications, especially spelling. Which they had to make because they were too stupid to understand the proper spellings.

They are generally more consistent and thus easier to learn. Of course, the fact there are two spellings makes it harder again.

[Tupac Shakur]

American simplifications, especially spelling.

[Kitschum]

Eh, it's a marginal difference. It's natural that native speakers are obsessed with minute differences between dialects but speaking as a foreigner either way is good. The only (slight) problem is that two standard variants co-exist.