Poll
Question:
What is your opinion of the Oxford comma?
Option 1: People should use it.
Option 2: People shouldn't use it.
Option 3: I don't care one way or the other. Your truth is your truth.
Option 4: What's the Oxford comma?
Option 5: I'm pretending it's 1998 on ICQ, so I don't use capital letters or punctuation at all.
I am 100% in favor of the Oxford comma.
What's your take?
I chose "What's the Oxford comma?", but was disappointed to find that it didn't give me the answer once I submitted my vote.
Quote from: webny99 on November 27, 2019, 04:11:33 PM
I chose "What's the Oxford comma?", but was disappointed to find that it didn't give me the answer once I submitted my vote.
The comma before the use of a conjunction when naming more than two items is the Oxford comma. Some folks leave it off, but that's not my style.
Example: kphoger, webny99, and formulanone have posted in this thread.You wouldn't use it for something like:
Your choices of sandwiches are ham or peanut butter and jelly, because PB&J go together. However, one might re-word that to prevent ambiguity (cue those let's eat an elderly member of the family comments).
When in Rome ....
When in Oxford, use the Oxford comma.
The thing about eating an elderly family member isn't an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue. In direct address, there's supposed to be a comma before the name of the person you're addressing, although a lot of people seem not to know this. Thus, "Hello, kphoger" would be a correct way to begin an e-mail message, and "Hello kphoger" would be incorrect. "Hi, Jim" –correct; "Hi Jim" –incorrect. "Thank you, sir" –correct; "Thank you sir" –incorrect.
The "elderly relative" example comes up as to direct address because it's a way of showing how commas matter. The correct form–"Let's eat, Grandma" –has a very different meaning from the incorrect form "Let's eat Grandma."
The most common "relatives" example relating to the Oxford or serial comma is a book dedication: "To my parents, Kristen Bell and God." Did I dedicate the book to four people or to two–that is, did I say that Kristen Bell and God are my parents, or did I dedicate the book to the two of them in addition to my parents? The serial or Oxford comma eliminates the ambiguity: "To my parents, Kristen Bell, and God."
Quote from: formulanone on November 27, 2019, 04:56:01 PM
Quote from: webny99 on November 27, 2019, 04:11:33 PM
I chose "What's the Oxford comma?", but was disappointed to find that it didn't give me the answer once I submitted my vote.
The comma before the use of a conjunction when naming more than two items is the Oxford comma. Some folks leave it off, but that's not my style.
Example: kphoger, webny99, and formulanone have posted in this thread.
You wouldn't use it for something like: Your choices of sandwiches are ham or peanut butter and jelly, because PB&J go together. However, one might re-word that to prevent ambiguity (cue those let's eat an elderly member of the family comments).
Hopefully you picked up that I was attempting humor, but thank you anyways for the detailed response! :)
Quote from: formulanone on November 27, 2019, 04:56:01 PM
Quote from: webny99 on November 27, 2019, 04:11:33 PM
I chose "What's the Oxford comma?", but was disappointed to find that it didn't give me the answer once I submitted my vote.
The comma before the use of a conjunction when naming more than two items is the Oxford comma. Some folks leave it off, but that's not my style.
Example: kphoger, webny99, and formulanone have posted in this thread.
I often use that.
I tend to use commas more than many people, to separate phrases; and I like to use the semicolon as well.
Comma = small pause, semicolon = major pause.
Quote from: Beltway on November 27, 2019, 09:43:18 PM
I tend to use commas more than many people, to separate phrases; and I like to use the semicolon as well.
Comma = small pause, semicolon = major pause.
Your semicolon use is incorrect. Both sides of a semicolon need to be a complete sentence; removing the word "and" works.
The only people who care are Merle Haggard's ex wives, Robert Duvall and Kris Kristofferson.
Quote from: 1 on November 27, 2019, 09:53:41 PM
Quote from: Beltway on November 27, 2019, 09:43:18 PM
I tend to use commas more than many people, to separate phrases; and I like to use the semicolon as well.
Comma = small pause, semicolon = major pause.
Your semicolon use is incorrect. Both sides of a semicolon need to be a complete sentence; removing the word "and" works.
Is this correct?
All words in Scripture are God's words, as He specified to each author what to record as Scripture. This does not mean that everything is to be taken as God's instructions, for example, the Bible records the fact that Judas hanged himself (presumably with a rope), but that does not mean that the Bible gives approval for anyone to hang themselves; quite the contrary.
I've always used the Oxford Comma. I believe I was marked down for it when I was younger, but people quickly stopped caring by the time I was in, what, the fourth grade?
IMO, things in a list should always be separated by the same thing. For example, adding a comma before each listed item in a sentence. Adding "and" before the final item is appropriate English, but I don't think substituting the comma for an "and" should be acceptable.
What about the Shatner comma?
Quote from: SSOWorld on November 28, 2019, 06:41:06 AM
What about the Shatner comma?
What, about, the, Shatner, comma?
Quote from: formulanone on November 27, 2019, 04:56:01 PM
Quote from: webny99 on November 27, 2019, 04:11:33 PM
I chose "What's the Oxford comma?", but was disappointed to find that it didn't give me the answer once I submitted my vote.
The comma before the use of a conjunction when naming more than two items is the Oxford comma. Some folks leave it off, but that's not my style.
Example: kphoger, webny99, and formulanone have posted in this thread.
Dammit...now I'm caught up on you talking about yourself in the 3rd person!
Quote from: jakeroot on November 28, 2019, 01:43:56 AM
I've always used the Oxford Comma. I believe I was marked down for it when I was younger, but people quickly stopped caring by the time I was in, what, the fourth grade?
....
I remember my brother got marked down for not using that comma in a book report, but the place where he omitted it was in the book's title–the title as it appeared on the cover omitted the comma and the teacher said he should have included it because it's not optional. I recall our mother told off the teacher for downgrading my brother and then went to the principal about it when the teacher wouldn't cooperate. Our mom didn't normally do that sort of thing, but in this case she was absolutely right and the teacher was out of line. You don't change the book's title!
Howabout putting apostrophe's into all of your plural's?
:hmmm:
Mike
I grew up using it, but at some point, the Associated Press Stylebook dropped it, so I quit using it in my work product. Over the past few years, I have started making a conscious attempt to use it again, even though it's contrary to AP style. I had gotten into the habit of not using it, so it's been a bit difficult to start using it again. Something like learning to type on a typewriter where you used two taps of the spacebar between sentences, but you only use one on a computer.
Quote from: jeffandnicole on November 28, 2019, 08:29:57 AM
Quote from: formulanone on November 27, 2019, 04:56:01 PM
Quote from: webny99 on November 27, 2019, 04:11:33 PM
I chose "What's the Oxford comma?", but was disappointed to find that it didn't give me the answer once I submitted my vote.
The comma before the use of a conjunction when naming more than two items is the Oxford comma. Some folks leave it off, but that's not my style.
Example: kphoger, webny99, and formulanone have posted in this thread.
Dammit...now I'm caught up on you talking about yourself in the 3rd person!
There's a first for everything, but it would have been more difficult to prove the point by being the second poster.
I always use the Oxford comma. (I also double space between sentences.)
I've mentioned this in other threads, but I'll note it again here: The lack (?) of an Oxford comma in a Maine labor law featured prominently in a court case to determine whether certain delivery drivers are entitled to overtime pay.
http://loweringthebar.net/2017/03/the-oxford-comma-use-it.html
Quote from: SSOWorld on November 28, 2019, 06:41:06 AM
What about the Shatner comma?
KeithE4Phx! Believes! The! Proper! Term! Is! The! Shatner! Exclamation! Point! :)
Quote from: 1995hoo on November 28, 2019, 01:04:29 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on November 28, 2019, 01:43:56 AM
I've always used the Oxford Comma. I believe I was marked down for it when I was younger, but people quickly stopped caring by the time I was in, what, the fourth grade?
....
I remember my brother got marked down for not using that comma in a book report, but the place where he omitted it was in the book's title–the title as it appeared on the cover omitted the comma and the teacher said he should have included it because it's not optional. I recall our mother told off the teacher for downgrading my brother and then went to the principal about it when the teacher wouldn't cooperate. Our mom didn't normally do that sort of thing, but in this case she was absolutely right and the teacher was out of line. You don't change the book's title!
Couldn't blame her at all. The way I see it, book titles are proper nouns and shouldn't be subject to re-spellings.
Quote from: jakeroot on November 29, 2019, 02:26:06 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on November 28, 2019, 01:04:29 PM
Quote from: jakeroot on November 28, 2019, 01:43:56 AM
I've always used the Oxford Comma. I believe I was marked down for it when I was younger, but people quickly stopped caring by the time I was in, what, the fourth grade?
....
I remember my brother got marked down for not using that comma in a book report, but the place where he omitted it was in the book's title–the title as it appeared on the cover omitted the comma and the teacher said he should have included it because it's not optional. I recall our mother told off the teacher for downgrading my brother and then went to the principal about it when the teacher wouldn't cooperate. Our mom didn't normally do that sort of thing, but in this case she was absolutely right and the teacher was out of line. You don't change the book's title!
Couldn't blame her at all. The way I see it, book titles are proper nouns and shouldn't be subject to re-spellings.
Perhaps the teacher tried to tell the publisher and is secretly asking for help.
Quote from: wanderer2575 on November 28, 2019, 09:23:27 PM
I always use the Oxford comma. (I also double space between sentences.)
I've mentioned this in other threads, but I'll note it again here: The lack (?) of an Oxford comma in a Maine labor law featured prominently in a court case to determine whether certain delivery drivers are entitled to overtime pay.
http://loweringthebar.net/2017/03/the-oxford-comma-use-it.html
While I favor the use of the serial comma, I think the result in that case was wrong because there was no conjunction before the word "packing." In other words, if "packing for" referred to either shipment or distribution, the word "or" should have appeared before "packing."
The legislature's response was even worse: They rewrote it using
semicolons!
Quote from: hbelkins on November 28, 2019, 07:59:49 PM
... on a typewriter where you used two taps of the spacebar between sentences, but you only use one on a computer.
Speak for yourself. I always double-space on a computer after a (full stop) period or colon.
At some point in the last year or two, I have also started using two spaces after semicolons. I once had a roommate who preferred the way it looked when he used a triple space after a period or colon.
I don't, however, double-space while texting on my phone. Too much work.
Quote from: kphoger on November 29, 2019, 04:03:28 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on November 28, 2019, 07:59:49 PM
... on a typewriter where you used two taps of the spacebar between sentences, but you only use one on a computer.
Speak for yourself. I always double-space on a computer after a (full stop) period or colon.
At some point in the last year or two, I have also started using two spaces after semicolons. I once had a roommate who preferred the way it looked when he used a triple space after a period or colon.
I don't, however, double-space while texting on my phone. Too much work.
I had a college professor who would downgrade you if you submitted a paper with two spaces after a period. (Since it was a digital publishing course, a component of every assignment was to include the electronic file. Word has a couple handy tools to check for this.) That ended my double spacing habit
very quickly, since the amount he would deduct grew as the semester went on.
Double spacing (or "the double tap" as my prof called it), was a carryover from typewriter/pre-word processor days. Most modern programs account for sentence spacing in the background based on what kind of punctuation you use. Double tapping just creates extra work for the typist in the long run. I recall the lectures regarding the "rivers" of white space the double tap creates under many text justifications (full justification being one of the worst).
For me, this is flat out an OCD thing. If I am reading a document, and the author of said document omits a serial comma, I notice, and I find it quite jarring because it breaks the flow of the list.
Now, I can appreciate that if you're writing a newspaper and printing tens of thousands of copies of the same thing every day, the cost savings from not using ink on an extra comma here and there can add up after a while. This is why the AP style manual says to do it this way, it's a style manual written for print journalism. But when you're writing something that isn't intended to be printed, that reason for omitting the comma ceases to be relevant.
It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".
Fortunately, it is very easy in word processing software to eradicate double spaces with Find and Replace.
I don't use the Oxford comma, but to make up for it I put two commas between each of the other items on the list.
Quote from: Duke87 on December 01, 2019, 10:50:43 AM
It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".
I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences. It takes very little extra effort.
I will grant that YMMV.
Quote from: Beltway on December 01, 2019, 02:00:03 PM
Quote from: Duke87 on December 01, 2019, 10:50:43 AM
It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".
I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences. It takes very little extra effort.
It takes even less effort to not do it. :)
Quote from: Beltway on December 01, 2019, 02:00:03 PM
Quote from: Duke87 on December 01, 2019, 10:50:43 AM
It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".
I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences. It takes very little extra effort.
I will grant that YMMV.
Computers (and their word-processor predecessors) were supposed to sense that the space between sentences was different than the space between words, and automatically insert a little extra space to preserve the appearance of a second space.
Quote from: hbelkins on December 01, 2019, 05:14:27 PM
Computers (and their word-processor predecessors) were supposed to sense that the space between sentences was different than the space between words, and automatically insert a little extra space to preserve the appearance of a second space.
So, the issue is one of kerning. Manual typewriters had a technological limitation that the text from them was all monospaced: that is to say, every character took up the same amount of horizontal space, whether it was a period or a capital W. When you typed a period, it was generally centered on the horizontal space allotted to it. But... because periods aren't very wide, this awkwardly resulted in some space appearing between the period and the last letter of the word before it, especially when the last word ended with an f, r, v, or w - because the rightmost part of these letters is not in line with where the period goes.
In order to compensate for this, people started typing two spaces after periods to balance it out.
But modern computer fonts are not monospaced, and the kerning is dynamic. There is no awakward space left of the period to balance out.
If you still think it looks better with two spaces in spite of this, well, that's a valid opinion - but any assertion that this is "the right way" to do it is incorrect.
Quote from: Duke87 on December 01, 2019, 10:50:43 AM
It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".
Fortunately, it is very easy in word processing software to eradicate double spaces with Find and Replace.
I habitually put two spaces at the end of sentences, until I confronted some very tight page limits for court filings. Eliminating the double space was one small and easy measure to keep within page limits, though we employed other tricks (like shrinking margins, fonts, and paragraph spacing) as well.
The courts got wise to all the font/format games lawyers were playing, and imposed word limits. But I still try to avoid double spaces, especially for the Internet.
Quote from: oscar on December 01, 2019, 06:55:16 PM
Quote from: Duke87 on December 01, 2019, 10:50:43 AM
It is in that regard not unlike the insistence of some people on continuing to put two spaces after a period when typing on a computer - it is a thing that persists out of habit and institutional inertia, because people don't understand why they were taught to do it that way and don't appreciate that it no longer makes sense to do. Indeed, I've confronted coworkers about this and none have been able to justify the practice with anything more than "well that's what you're supposed to do, that's how I was taught to do it".
Fortunately, it is very easy in word processing software to eradicate double spaces with Find and Replace.
I habitually put two spaces at the end of sentences, until I confronted some very tight page limits for court filings. Eliminating the double space was one small and easy measure to keep within page limits, though we employed other tricks (like shrinking margins, fonts, and paragraph spacing) as well.
The courts got wise to all the font/format games lawyers were playing, and imposed word limits. But I still try to avoid double spaces, especially for the Internet.
Aren't legal documents too long to begin with? Maybe they want to reduce costs ;)
Quote from: SSOWorld on December 01, 2019, 07:19:01 PM
Aren't legal documents too long to begin with? Maybe they want to reduce costs ;)
Judges have to read all that stuff, and so prefer brevity. But yeah, there is some irony in calling them "briefs".
Quote from: DaBigE on December 01, 2019, 04:56:23 PM
Quote from: Beltway on December 01, 2019, 02:00:03 PM
I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences. It takes very little extra effort.
It takes even less effort to not do it. :)
Here is an interesting article and blog comments, with many opinions both pro and con.
https://www.instructionalsolutions.com/blog/one-space-vs-two-after-period
A couple of decades ago, I was a lurker on the CompuServe Desktop Publishing Forum. As I remember it, the experts there came to this consensus about why the two-space "rule" came to exist:
The heart of the problem was that the typewriter became popular in the 1880s, which was the middle of what typographers call their "dark age" . In high-quality typesetting, such as in books, one space has always been the rule, from Gutenberg to today.
But in the second half of the 19th century, there was a sharp increase in cheap, low-quality typesetting, much of it for commercial ephemera such as price lists. A major characteristic of this work was a lot of extra spaces; printers charged by the length of the work, so more space meant more profit. Also, illiterate typesetters worked for lower pay – but they couldn't hyphenate, so they justified text by shoving in extra spaces.
When the typewriter was invented, the profession of typing teacher also had to be invented, with the first teachers making up the rules. Since they were teaching office workers, they used that badly-set commercial stuff of the era as a model for what typists ought to produce.
Ever since then, every typing teacher has simply repeated what they themselves were taught as "correct" , no matter that it started as an imitation of junk.
Quote from: GenExpwy on December 02, 2019, 03:25:10 AM
Ever since then, every typing teacher has simply repeated what they themselves were taught as "correct" , no matter that it started as an imitation of junk.
To be fair, I think all humans do this in some way.
We tend to pass on beliefs and ideas that have limited to no basis in reality. Put enough of it together, and things make a bit more cosmic sense.
Having a college prof that marked off one point for every double-space after a period stopped my habit very quickly!
Quote from: Beltway on December 01, 2019, 09:03:10 PM
Quote from: DaBigE on December 01, 2019, 04:56:23 PM
Quote from: Beltway on December 01, 2019, 02:00:03 PM
I continue to use two spaces because it reads better and provides more delineation between sentences. It takes very little extra effort.
It takes even less effort to not do it. :)
Here is an interesting article and blog comments, with many opinions both pro and con.
https://www.instructionalsolutions.com/blog/one-space-vs-two-after-period
Interesting - the blog's example uses and Oxford comma.
Quote from: formulanone on December 02, 2019, 07:54:24 AM
Having a college prof that marked off one point for every double-space after a period stopped my habit very quickly!
Was there a limit to the number of points they'd take off? Or could you end up getting a '0' for having a term paper with all double-spaced sentences?
Quote from: DaBigE on December 02, 2019, 08:00:39 AM
Quote from: formulanone on December 02, 2019, 07:54:24 AM
Having a college prof that marked off one point for every double-space after a period stopped my habit very quickly!
Was there a limit to the number of points they'd take off? Or could you end up getting a '0' for having a term paper with all double-spaced sentences?
I don't remember; it was twenty-three years ago...
Quote from: DaBigE on December 02, 2019, 08:00:39 AM
Quote from: formulanone on December 02, 2019, 07:54:24 AM
Having a college prof that marked off one point for every double-space after a period stopped my habit very quickly!
Was there a limit to the number of points they'd take off? Or could you end up getting a '0' for having a term paper with all double-spaced sentences?
Doubtful. They would have a style guide for papers and theses, which would state how they want that handled, or omit mention if they would accept either. Probably not more than a few points taken off, but that might mean the difference in the final grade.
Every school and every professor could have differing approaches and standards and penalties.
The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!
That's interesting, because when I code 2 spaces in HTML, the page displayed to the user has 2 spaces.
Word documents and their conversions to PSD display the 2 spaces, and they don't deal with HTML.
Regarding double line spacing...
I recall a Calvin & Hobbes strip that I can't find an image of online for the life of me... There was a three-page book report due, and Calvin made it to three pages by quadruple-spacing the text. When the teacher complained, he replied "Are you referring to my dramatic use of white space?" I find this especially funny, because Watterson has often been praised for his dramatic use of white space in drawing Calvin & Hobbes.
Quote from: Beltway on December 03, 2019, 02:02:13 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era—the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!
That's interesting, because when I code 2 spaces in HTML, the page displayed to the user has 2 spaces.
Word documents and their conversions to PSD display the 2 spaces, and they don't deal with HTML.
Gotta say that I've been using HTML since 1996, and it typically ignored rendering more than one space at a time, unless you used
repeatedly, or formatted
<align> as desired. Might have been some deprecated markup commands in the past, though?
Interestingly, this forum software allows you to add your own spaces, which sometimes bugs me when I cut-and-paste something and leave extra room.
Quote from: formulanone on December 03, 2019, 05:43:13 PM
Quote from: Beltway on December 03, 2019, 02:02:13 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!
That's interesting, because when I code 2 spaces in HTML, the page displayed to the user has 2 spaces.
Word documents and their conversions to PSD display the 2 spaces, and they don't deal with HTML.
Gotta say that I've been using HTML since 1996, and it typically ignored rendering more than one space at a time, unless you used repeatedly, or formatted <align> as desired. Might have been some deprecated markup commands in the past, though?
Interestingly, this forum software allows you to add your own spaces, which sometimes bugs me when I cut-and-paste something and leave extra room.
If you bring up the source code of this page, you'll see that the forum converts extra spaces in posts to entities in order to force them to show up.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2019, 01:35:08 AM
If you bring up the source code of this page, you'll see that the forum converts extra spaces in posts to entities in order to force them to show up.
HTML has a lot of coding elements behind the scene of what the end user sees in their browser.
Quote from: Beltway on December 04, 2019, 07:35:37 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2019, 01:35:08 AM
If you bring up the source code of this page, you'll see that the forum converts extra spaces in posts to entities in order to force them to show up.
HTML has a lot of coding elements behind the scene of what the end user sees in their browser.
No shit? It's almost like that's what my last two posts were about.
Quote from: Beltway on December 04, 2019, 07:35:37 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2019, 01:35:08 AM
If you bring up the source code of this page, you'll see that the forum converts extra spaces in posts to entities in order to force them to show up.
HTML has a lot of coding elements behind the scene of what the end user sees in their browser.
Ah, it was the <pre> </pre> tag. Forgot about that one, as I never needed it.
It let you type as many spaces as you wished, and didn't parse HTML commands between it; helpful if you needed to show a code example.
Why put any space at all between sentences?There is punctuation followed by a capital letter which already makes it clear there is a new sentence and already provides for spacing between words in consecutive sentences.This saves even more space and the sentence breaks are clear.Isn't this what the one-space people are saying about one space?
I'm kidding, of course, but as a person who learned to type on a manual typewriter the period-space-space habit is difficult to break.
I voted an enthusiastic YES to the Oxford comma.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2019, 12:37:50 PM
Quote from: Beltway on December 04, 2019, 07:35:37 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2019, 01:35:08 AM
If you bring up the source code of this page, you'll see that the forum converts extra spaces in posts to entities in order to force them to show up.
HTML has a lot of coding elements behind the scene of what the end user sees in their browser.
No shit? It's almost like that's what my last two posts were about.
HTML has a lot of "overhead" that straight text does not have.
I'm not sure what your point is.
Just because the 'blank' character takes up space in code is not a reason not to use it.
Has been the case since mainframes where the EBCDIC 8-bit byte represented the 'blank' character as hexadecimal "40" which in bits is "0100 0000"
The point is because the browser is going strip it out anyway, there's little point in putting it there.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2019, 08:27:04 PM
The point is because the browser is going strip it out anyway, there's little point in putting it there.
The aforementioned double space between sentences in the same paragraph?
None of my browsers strip out the second space -- Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome on Windows 10 computer, or Internet Explorer and Google Chrome on Windows 7 computer.
I usually use the Oxford comma; however, I don't really mind seeing it either way. It'd be nice if we were consistent, but that's not the world we live in!
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 04, 2019, 08:27:04 PM
The point is because the browser is going strip it out anyway, there's little point in putting it there.
Quote from: Beltway on December 04, 2019, 08:35:43 PM
The aforementioned double space between sentences in the same paragraph?
None of my browsers strip out the second space -- Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome on Windows 10 computer, or Internet Explorer and Google Chrome on Windows 7 computer.
Indeed. This is easily shown below.
. 1 . space . between . words . and . periods .
. 2 . space . between . words . and . periods .
The browser is not stripping the extra whitespace before displaying it to me: they are still visible.
Quote from: kphoger on December 05, 2019, 11:55:03 AM
Indeed. This is easily shown below.
. 1 . space . between . words . and . periods .
. 2 . space . between . words . and . periods .
The browser is not stripping the extra whitespace before displaying it to me: they are still visible.
The actual HTML code for this quote:
QuoteIndeed. This is easily shown below.<br /><br />. 1 . space . between . words . and . periods .<br /><br />. 2 . space . between . words . and . periods .<br /><br />The browser is not stripping the extra whitespace before displaying it to me: they are still visible.
The only reason you still see the extra spaces is because they're coded as
characters, not regular spaces.
Quote from: US 89 on December 05, 2019, 12:25:16 PM
QuoteIndeed. This is easily shown below.<br /><br />. 1 . space . between . words . and . periods .<br /><br />. 2 . space . between . words . and . periods .<br /><br />The browser is not stripping the extra whitespace before displaying it to me: they are still visible.
The only reason you still see the extra spaces is because they're coded as characters, not regular spaces.
I am OK with that.
There is plenty of code "behind the scenes" or "overhead" in HTML, to make it display the way it does.
While having 5 HTML characters to represent the second space seems a bit excessive, that means the two spaces take up 6, and I am fine with that when I code a webpage. That is an insignificant practice compared to the space taken up by images.
Quote from: US 89 on December 05, 2019, 12:25:16 PM
Quote from: kphoger on December 05, 2019, 11:55:03 AM
Indeed. This is easily shown below.
. 1 . space . between . words . and . periods .
. 2 . space . between . words . and . periods .
The browser is not stripping the extra whitespace before displaying it to me: they are still visible.
The actual HTML code for this quote:
QuoteIndeed. This is easily shown below.<br /><br />. 1 . space . between . words . and . periods .<br /><br />. 2 . space . between . words . and . periods .<br /><br />The browser is not stripping the extra whitespace before displaying it to me: they are still visible.
The only reason you still see the extra spaces is because they're coded as characters, not regular spaces.
Right. I don't know computer code, but I gathered that's what was happening based on previous posts. My point is that it's misleading for him to say "the browser is going to strip [the extra space] out": it's not being stripped out, just modified into something else–something else, in fact, that looks exactly like an extra space to the user. And, therefore, it is simply false to claim "there's little point in putting it there": a lot of us double-space between sentences in order to make the break between thoughts stand out more clearly, and that does not change simply because a space that looks like a space has been converted into a different code element that still looks like a space.
The behavior is pretty noticeable on my site. Go to nysroads.com, look at the source, and it's noticeable that I double-space everything but Chrome strips it out. Everything on that site is hand-coded, and I like my source code looking neat and tidy, so no nbsp characters for me. The exception is using the codes for characters like é, since there are actual technical reasons (other than some people liking the way single spaces look better, even though it makes the sentences run together) as to why that became a best practice.
Quote from: vdeane on December 05, 2019, 01:26:17 PM
The behavior is pretty noticeable on my site. Go to nysroads.com, look at the source, and it's noticeable that I double-space everything but Chrome strips it out. Everything on that site is hand-coded, and I like my source code looking neat and tidy, so no nbsp characters for me. The exception is using the codes for characters like é, since there are actual technical reasons (other than some people liking the way single spaces look better, even though it makes the sentences run together) as to why that became a best practice.
Yes, I see it. Thank you.
I still wonder why anyone would actually want to eliminate the second space.
Quote from: kphoger on December 05, 2019, 01:03:22 PM
Quote from: US 89 on December 05, 2019, 12:25:16 PM
Quote from: kphoger on December 05, 2019, 11:55:03 AM
Indeed. This is easily shown below.
. 1 . space . between . words . and . periods .
. 2 . space . between . words . and . periods .
The browser is not stripping the extra whitespace before displaying it to me: they are still visible.
The actual HTML code for this quote:
QuoteIndeed. This is easily shown below.<br /><br />. 1 . space . between . words . and . periods .<br /><br />. 2 . space . between . words . and . periods .<br /><br />The browser is not stripping the extra whitespace before displaying it to me: they are still visible.
The only reason you still see the extra spaces is because they're coded as characters, not regular spaces.
Right. I don't know computer code, but I gathered that's what was happening based on previous posts. My point is that it's misleading for him to say "the browser is going to strip [the extra space] out": it's not being stripped out, just modified into something else–something else, in fact, that looks exactly like an extra space to the user. And, therefore, it is simply false to claim "there's little point in putting it there": a lot of us double-space between sentences in order to make the break between thoughts stand out more clearly, and that does not change simply because a space that looks like a space has been converted into a different code element that still looks like a space.
What he's trying to say is if you write your HTML code with double-spacing between sentences, the second space will not display to the end user unless you specifically code one of them as a non-breaking space.
...which this site does with its own script. ?
Right. But this site is an exception; if no script is present to substitute a nbsp for a space (which there usually is not), then extraneous spaces will not be displayed to the user, and including them results in no benefit to the reader, actual or perceived.
The reason why extraneous spaces are removed during parsing is to allow coders to use space characters to organize their code (i.e. indent it) and have it not affect the displayed content.
I'm not reading the entire thread but I reserve the Oxford comma for complex sentences where it would be helpful to clarify structure.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 03:11:34 PM
Right. But this site is an exception; if no script is present to substitute a nbsp for a space (which there usually is not), then extraneous spaces will not be displayed to the user, and including them results in no benefit to the reader, actual or perceived.
The reason why extraneous spaces are removed during parsing is to allow coders to use space characters to organize their code (i.e. indent it) and have it not affect the displayed content.
Not sure of the percentage, but some websites have HTML webpages that have the double spacing between sentences in the same paragraph.
HTML webpages are only part of the system. PDF documents are whatever they are produced as, and all browsers do is display them as they were originally produced.
There are Word documents and PDF documents that don't get posted on websites, they are for internal business or academic use or personal use.
So the grammar is not controlled by HTML usage, as billions of documents are not displayed on HTML pages.
Quote from: Beltway on December 05, 2019, 07:09:00 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 03:11:34 PM
Right. But this site is an exception; if no script is present to substitute a nbsp for a space (which there usually is not), then extraneous spaces will not be displayed to the user, and including them results in no benefit to the reader, actual or perceived.
The reason why extraneous spaces are removed during parsing is to allow coders to use space characters to organize their code (i.e. indent it) and have it not affect the displayed content.
Not sure of the percentage, but some websites have HTML webpages that have the double spacing between sentences in the same paragraph.
HTML webpages are only part of the system. PDF documents are whatever they are produced as, and all browsers do is display them as they were originally produced.
There are Word documents and PDF documents that don't get posted on websites, they are for internal business or academic use or personal use.
So the grammar is not controlled by HTML usage, as billions of documents are not displayed on HTML pages.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character is
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 03, 2019, 01:00:59 PM
the HTML specification
It's entirely possible I wasn't talking about every document in the known universe!!
When I'm typing sentences, it's generally on this forum, in an e-mail, or to be printed on paper directly from Word.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 07:49:35 PM
It's entirely possible I wasn't talking about every document in the known universe!!
True, and that's where we all got off track (especially me, knowing next to nothing about code). But you
did call it "the #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era". There is a sufficient number of applications in the modern era in which the extra space is not stripped, that it's not really much of an argument against it. I, for one, hardly do any typing at all that ends up being HTML-formatted before presentation to its end user. Maybe none, in fact.
So, from the perspective of us double-spacers, either the double space gets displayed as intended, or else it's stripped as if we had only single-spaced–depending on how our text is treated between its genesis and the end user. Neither alternative has any disadvantage to the person typing the text. The only real downside is increase file size by a small amount, which honestly doesn't really matter to 96% of the people typing.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 07:49:35 PM
The #1 argument against double spaces after periods in the modern era–the HTML specification treats anything more than a single space character as "whitespace". Whitespace is a catch-all term for spaces, tabs, etc generally used for making code (like HTML text) more legible. Since whitespace is meant to make the code more legible and not as a presentation part of the document, HTML parsers (like browsers) strip it out before displaying to the user. So the only thing double-spacing periods does is pad file sizes!
<<< snip >>>
It's entirely possible I wasn't talking about every document in the known universe!!
Forgive me if I misinterpreted but it sounded to me like it referred to writing in general.
Quote from: Road Hog on December 05, 2019, 06:16:43 PM
I'm not reading the entire thread but I reserve the Oxford comma for complex sentences where it would be helpful to clarify structure.
Could you give me some examples of your not using it and your using it?
I wouldn't imagine that the average American creates too many .docx, .odt, or .pdf files anymore, because that's not how an average American consumes content anymore–it's all HTML or plain text that will later be rendered into HTML. Web pages, social media*, wikis. I can't remember the last time I used a word processor for anything.
*I just tested, and Facebook strips out double spaces, for what it's worth.
Wow, you have Facebook friends who type more than one sentence at a time! ..........
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 08:07:36 PM
I wouldn't imagine that the average American creates too many .docx, .odt, or .pdf files anymore, because that's not how average American consumes content anymore–it's all HTML or plain text that will later be rendered into HTML. Web pages, social media*, wikis. I can't remember the last time I used a word processor for anything.
Really? I use them all the time.
Graduate college program started this year. Research papers, position papers, minor papers.
Used them frequently in my IT job which I retired from 2 years ago.
The average person does not write research papers in between going to the grocery store and picking up the kids from soccer practice, though. They consume content from websites and through various forms of social media.
In a work environment, it will be highly dependent on the position as to whether you will be using a word processor or not. In one of my jobs, we do not even have an office suite of any kind installed on most of the computers.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 08:24:05 PM
The average person does not write research papers in between going to the grocery store and picking up the kids from soccer practice, though. They consume content from websites and through various forms of social media.
In a work environment, it will be highly dependent on the position as to whether you will be using a word processor or not. In one of my jobs, we do not even have an office suite of any kind installed on most of the computers.
In state government here the MS Office package is part of the standard image, and that is over 100,000 employees.
How many college students are there in the U.S.? In 2017, there were 14.56 million college students in the U.S. enrolled in public colleges and 5.1 million students enrolled in private colleges. (statista dot com)
This is getting tedious. The fact of that matter is that massive amounts of written communication goes on every day that never touches a browser or needs HTML.
Quote from: Beltway on December 05, 2019, 08:37:53 PM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 08:24:05 PM
The average person does not write research papers in between going to the grocery store and picking up the kids from soccer practice, though. They consume content from websites and through various forms of social media.
In a work environment, it will be highly dependent on the position as to whether you will be using a word processor or not. In one of my jobs, we do not even have an office suite of any kind installed on most of the computers.
In state government here the MS Office package is part of the standard image, and that is over 100,000 employees.
How many college students are there in the U.S.? In 2017, there were 14.56 million college students in the U.S. enrolled in public colleges and 5.1 million students enrolled in private colleges. (statista dot com)
This is getting tedious. The fact of that matter is that massive amounts of written communication goes on every day that never touches a browser or needs HTML.
The same site shows 220.5 million U.S. Facebook users.
The fact of that matter is that even more massive amounts of written communication goes on every day that touches a browser or needs HTML.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 09:09:19 PM
The same site shows 220.5 million U.S. Facebook users.
The fact of that matter is that even more massive amounts of written communication goes on every day that touches a browser or needs HTML.
The PDF documents posted to websites do not need HTML themselves.
And, oh, there are 1.2 billion Microsoft Office users.
There are 2.45 billion users of Facebook worldwide.
So what? Given the number of documents produced that do not involve HTML, that language never will dictate how the English language is used for everybody.
The so what is that you can hit space bar as much as you want, and if you do it in a way that reaches the largest audiences, your readers will see exactly one space between your sentences no matter how much you press.
Merry Christmas!
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 09:41:47 PM
The so what is that you can hit space bar as much as you want, and if you do it in a way that reaches the largest audiences, your readers will see exactly one space between your sentences no matter how much you press.
Not if they download a PDF document.
Besides, you don't hit the whole internet when you post something, probably 99% of all posters/publishers hit a relative handful.
Who the hell is downloading all these PDFs? Is there some news site that posts their entire output as a series of PDFs? Do your family members email you PDF updates of what their kids are doing?
Do you even exist in the real world?
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 06, 2019, 01:39:49 AM
Who the hell is downloading all these PDFs? Is there some news site that posts their entire output as a series of PDFs? Do your family members email you PDF updates of what their kids are doing?
Do you even exist in the real world?
Have you ever worked in a work environment that uses computers that uses documents?
You want to talk about a toy like social media.
Workplaces are important. However, I would use only one space after a period even in a word processor.
Or is that a full stop?
Quote from: Beltway on December 06, 2019, 05:50:42 AM
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 06, 2019, 01:39:49 AM
Who the hell is downloading all these PDFs? Is there some news site that posts their entire output as a series of PDFs? Do your family members email you PDF updates of what their kids are doing?
Do you even exist in the real world?
Have you ever worked in a work environment that uses computers that uses documents?
You want to talk about a toy like social media.
You're hyper focused on the office environment. For most people, that doesn't even make up half of their day. Other than a bank statement or maybe an invoice, I can't recall the last time I downloaded a PDF outside of work. There's much more to the electronic world than social media. Does Amazon have a PDF catalog out there that I don't know about?
Quote from: DaBigE on December 06, 2019, 08:45:14 AM
You're hyper focused on the office environment. For most people, that doesn't even make up half of their day. Other than a bank statement or maybe an invoice, I can't recall the last time I downloaded a PDF outside of work. There's much more to the electronic world than social media. Does Amazon have a PDF catalog out there that I don't know about?
I mean, I imagine that the members of this forum use PDFs more often than the average computer user, given that a lot of DOT documents come in that format. But otherwise, I have to agree with you and Scott5114 about this. It just isn't what the average computer user does or uses.
Quote from: Scott5114 on December 05, 2019, 08:24:05 PM
The average person does not write research papers in between going to the grocery store and picking up the kids from soccer practice, though. They consume content from websites and through various forms of social media.
The average person hardly ever posts more than one sentence at a time on social media. No decision to make.
This was a sub-discussion about why a person might
use two spaces, not about how many people might
see two spaces. I'd say that hardly anyone has two personal protocols for spacing between sentences–one space for files that will be HTML-processed and two spaces for other files. Rather, pretty much every person will either type one space in every application or two spaces in every application. For those of us prefer double-space, there is zero downside except for slightly bigger HTML file sizes: in some applications, the double space is retained while, in others, it is stripped.
I don't care how many people use Facebook
vs how many people use MS Word. The obvious fact is that a lot of people use each of them.
Besides which... The majority of my multi-sentence communication (other than this forum) happens via work e-mail. We use MS Outlook, which does not strip the extra space when I send it.
Quote from: MNHighwayMan on December 06, 2019, 08:48:11 AM
Quote from: DaBigE on December 06, 2019, 08:45:14 AM
You're hyper focused on the office environment. For most people, that doesn't even make up half of their day. Other than a bank statement or maybe an invoice, I can't recall the last time I downloaded a PDF outside of work. There's much more to the electronic world than social media. Does Amazon have a PDF catalog out there that I don't know about?
I mean, I imagine that the members of this forum use PDFs more often than the average computer user, given that a lot of DOT documents come in that format. But otherwise, I have to agree with you and Scott5114 about this. It just isn't what the average computer user does or uses.
Yeahbut ... I am not trying to dictate whether you use one space or two spaces.
Simply saying that there are ample formal reasons to use two spaces if you choose.
FWIW, I prepared 8 papers in Word for a graduate college class that I have taken this Fall, and converted them to PDF to submit (all assignments are submitted online). The school is in agreement with the two-space usage.
You know, we DO have a separate thread in "Off-Topic" called "minor things that bother you." Maybe take discussion of that ilk over there.
I've actually come here from Scott5411's Facebook thread.
To answer the OP: yes, I use the Oxford comma.
And to contribute my own two cents' worth on the single-space/double-space controversy: I use two spaces after periods and colons because that is what I was taught to do. I still prefer it for ease of seeing sentence breaks when reading text in a monospaced font, such as in Notepad. I tend to think people who attempt to stamp out two spaces, such as the college professors mentioned upthread, are would-be Torquemadas. I am no longer in a position where I need to submit to their dictates, but if I were, I would almost certainly use a sed script to enforce compliance with their requirements rather than retraining myself. Altering habits formed as part of the process of learning to touch-type is only slightly less troublesome than learning the Dvorak keyboard.
As for the prevalence of written text being rendered in HTML to the near-exclusion of all other file formats, I'd note that although I have adopted LaTeX as my preferred platform for my own word processing needs, I still frequently use Word and LibreOffice (as required) to handle files others send to me. LaTeX itself differentiates between single space and double space when it sets the final copy.
Yes, I use the Oxford comma; otherwise, one might misread a set of items I'm placing together, i.e.
Roads, signs, lights, and signals vs.
Roads, signs, lights and signals vs.
Roads, signs, and lights and signals.
The comma makes the differences obvious, IMHO.
Let's eat grandma, and
Let's eat, grandma.
As for spaces after a period, I use two after a sentence, one after an abbreviation, to make the differences between a sentence and an abbreviation obvious at a glance, i.e.
Mr. Elkins wrote a paragraph about Roadfan, Inc. Roadfan, Inc. is a company based in Ohio.
I also only use one space after a colon for the same reason. There's no need for two spaces when a colon is used as a spacer to further define what is discussed (maybe I see the colon in too many legal descriptions of properties), but it is described as follows: with one space after it.
"Let's eat[,] Grandma" is not an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue.
The COBOL programmer inside of me tends to be really fussy about grammar and syntax!
That includes how periods and commas are utilized.
Quote from: Brandon on December 09, 2019, 01:03:20 PM
I also only use one space after a colon for the same reason. There's no need for two spaces when a colon is used as a spacer to further define what is discussed (maybe I see the colon in too many legal descriptions of properties), but it is described as follows: with one space after it.
I never really have liked to use colons, for some reason.
I would typically use two dashes or a long dash.
I am quite liberal in my use of commas and semicolons, though.
I've long used two spaces after a colon, and I recently started using two spaces after a semicolon as well. The reason is that the what comes after the punctuation very often can stand alone as its own sentence (an independent clause) and, as such, it makes sense to me that I should separate it as if it were its own sentence. I also think that, if I'm using a more "substantial" punctuation mark than a mere comma, then I might as well use more substantial spacing as well.
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 09, 2019, 02:11:52 PM
"Let's eat[,] Grandma" is not an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue.
Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:
Roadfan, Inc.
, is a company based in Ohio.
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 09, 2019, 05:11:10 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 09, 2019, 02:11:52 PM
"Let's eat[,] Grandma" is not an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue.
Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:
Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.
Nah.
Quote from: Rothman on December 09, 2019, 05:48:35 PM
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 09, 2019, 05:11:10 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 09, 2019, 02:11:52 PM
“Let’s eat[,] Grandma” is not an Oxford comma issue. It’s a direct address issue.
Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:
Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.
Nah.
Yes, actually, at least in Chicago style (https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/book/ed17/part2/ch06/psec044.html). The key bit is: "If a comma is used to set off the abbreviation, a second comma is normally required in the middle of a sentence."
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 09, 2019, 05:53:35 PM
Quote from: Rothman on December 09, 2019, 05:48:35 PM
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 09, 2019, 05:11:10 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 09, 2019, 02:11:52 PM
"Let's eat[,] Grandma" is not an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue.
Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:
Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.
Nah.
Yes, actually, at least in Chicago style (http://"https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Commas/faq0001.html"). The key bit is: "The trick in running text is that if you use one comma, you must use two."
So, nah. One style does not dictate all.
Quote from: Rothman on December 09, 2019, 05:54:20 PM
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 09, 2019, 05:53:35 PM
Quote from: Rothman on December 09, 2019, 05:48:35 PM
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 09, 2019, 05:11:10 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 09, 2019, 02:11:52 PM
“Let’s eat[,] Grandma” is not an Oxford comma issue. It’s a direct address issue.
Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:
Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.
Nah.
Yes, actually, at least in Chicago style (http://"https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Commas/faq0001.html"). The key bit is: "The trick in running text is that if you use one comma, you must use two."
So, nah. One style does not dictate all.
Of course not. This was just an example. The point is that the usage in question is well attested and similar to the commas required in, say:
Martin Luther King, Jr.
, was a prominent civil rights leader.
December 9, 2019
, was a Monday.
Wichita, Kansas
, is not the capital of Ohio.
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 09, 2019, 06:04:39 PM
Quote from: Rothman on December 09, 2019, 05:54:20 PM
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 09, 2019, 05:53:35 PM
Quote from: Rothman on December 09, 2019, 05:48:35 PM
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 09, 2019, 05:11:10 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 09, 2019, 02:11:52 PM
"Let's eat[,] Grandma" is not an Oxford comma issue. It's a direct address issue.
Also not an Oxford comma issue, but since we're on the topic, there should be a comma after "Inc." in the following:
Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio.
Nah.
Yes, actually, at least in Chicago style (http://"https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Commas/faq0001.html"). The key bit is: "The trick in running text is that if you use one comma, you must use two."
So, nah. One style does not dictate all.
Of course not. This was just an example. The point is that the usage in question is well attested and similar to the commas required in, say:
Martin Luther King, Jr., was a prominent civil rights leader.
December 9, 2019, was a Monday.
Wichita, Kansas, is not the capital of Ohio.
Just because it is required in one style doesn't mean that it is required here. So, your initial assertion that you should have a comma like in your examples is incorrect.
He's correct. The comma after "Inc." is not optional. "Inc." is in the nature of an appositive, and appositives are set off by commas. It tells you which Roadfan is being mentioned. The year is similar–in CtrlAltDel's example, "2019" tells you which December 9 fell on a Monday. It's not necessarily essential information and it could be omitted. But if you include it, you have to put commas both before and after the year.
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 09, 2019, 08:26:17 PM
He's correct. The comma after "Inc." is not optional. "Inc." is in the nature of an appositive, and appositives are set off by commas. It tells you which Roadfan is being mentioned. The year is similar–in CtrlAltDel's example, "2019" tells you which December 9 fell on a Monday. It's not necessarily essential information and it could be omitted. But if you include it, you have to put commas both before and after the year.
Nah, it's not the nature of an appositive.
Quote from: Rothman on December 09, 2019, 08:56:11 PM
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 09, 2019, 08:26:17 PM
He's correct. The comma after "Inc." is not optional. "Inc." is in the nature of an appositive, and appositives are set off by commas. It tells you which Roadfan is being mentioned. The year is similar–in CtrlAltDel's example, "2019" tells you which December 9 fell on a Monday. It's not necessarily essential information and it could be omitted. But if you include it, you have to put commas both before and after the year.
Nah, it's not the nature of an appositive.
Yes, it is. But the larger principle has to do with paired commas. A comma isn't always needed before "Inc." –some companies don't use one there, such as Corning Incorporated (they spell out that word, too). When there is no comma before "Inc." (or another similar term like "LLC" ), a comma isn't needed afterwards either. But if a comma appears before it, a comma must appear after it as well. The standard is to write it the way the business does as to the comma before the "Inc."
True, it's not really an appositive. But it's like one. The "Inc." isn't really needed for the sentence to work. It's like parenthetical information–that is, material that's helpful in the sentence but not essential to its meaning. "Roadfan, Inc., is a company based in Ohio." "Roadfan is a company based in Ohio." Both work equally well. Obviously you don't omit the closing parenthesis unless you made a typo. The same principle applies to a comma.
Roadfan, Inc. is a company based in Ohio.
Quote from: Rothman on December 10, 2019, 10:31:57 AM
Roadfan, Inc. is a company based in Ohio.
You're missing a required comma in that sentence. (In keeping with this thread's subject, I will note it's definitely not an "Oxford comma issue," though!)
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 10, 2019, 10:33:47 AM
Quote from: Rothman on December 10, 2019, 10:31:57 AM
Roadfan, Inc. is a company based in Ohio.
You’re missing a required comma in that sentence. (In keeping with this thread’s subject, I will note it’s definitely not an “Oxford comma issue,” though!)
As I learned last night, you're wasting your time. It would be best to move on and let him be wrong.
Quote from: CtrlAltDel on December 10, 2019, 11:30:24 AM
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 10, 2019, 10:33:47 AM
Quote from: Rothman on December 10, 2019, 10:31:57 AM
Roadfan, Inc. is a company based in Ohio.
You're missing a required comma in that sentence. (In keeping with this thread's subject, I will note it's definitely not an "Oxford comma issue," though!)
As I learned last night, you're wasting your time. It would be best to move on and let him be wrong.
I know. It doesn't affect me if he wants to display ignorance. But I'm having a boring morning at work! I found this in a New York
Times article (link follows the quotation). I've left the original formatting in place, including not correcting their stylebook's erroneous omission of the serial comma and inclusion of spaces around the em dash. The way he explains the rationale for needing the commas is spot-on.
Quote
The Case of the Missing Comma
A related issue is the epidemic of missing commas after parenthetical phrases or appositives – that is, self-enclosed material that's within a sentence, but not essential to its meaning. The following sentences all lack a necessary comma. Can you spot where?
My father, who gave new meaning to the expression "hard working" never took a vacation.
He was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1964.
Philip Roth, author of "Portnoy's Complaint" and many other books is a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize.
If you said "working," "Iowa" and "books," give yourself full marks. I'm not sure why this particular mistake is so tempting. It may sometimes be because these phrases are so long that by the time we get to the end of them, we've forgotten about the first comma. In any case, a strategy to prevent it is to remember the acronym I.C.E. Whenever you find yourself using a comma before an Identification, Characterization or Explanation, remember that there has to be a comma after the I.C.E. as well.
Source: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/the-most-comma-mistakes/
I also asked my mom, a retired English teacher, if she could explain why the comma is needed after elements like "Inc." when you use a comma before the element. She sent me the photo below of the relevant page in
The Gregg Reference Manual, although the problem with this source is that it gives the rule but doesn't explain the rationale behind the rule. She also said, "I agree with you. The rule of thumb for appositives is 'Put the comma in if you can leave the information out.'"
(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20191210/168e778fcf2ab2d22c5ee4e0e7414c39.jpg)
Thinking about this prompts me to remember a different comma-related issue that I find annoying. I suppose this should go in the "Minor things that annoy you" thread, but I'll put it here because it's comma-related.
I dislike the use of what I would call "adjectival dates" because I believe they cause awkward sentences. Examples: "I am in receipt of your December 10, 2019, letter." "In his December 9, 2019, press conference, Mike Rizzo announced Strasburg had re-signed with the Nationals." Both of these would read better without the years, but sometimes there's a reason why you need to include the year, and the comma after the year is not optional.
I frequently see that sort of thing in legal argument where matters have dragged on for a long time such that the year may be relevant. Both sentences would work better if re-written so the dates aren't used as adjectives: "I am in receipt of your letter dated December 10, 2019." "In a press conference on December 9, 2019, Mike Rizzo announced Strasburg had re-signed with the Nationals." (An even better solution that allows for the adjectival date would be to use the European day-month-year format–"I am in receipt of your 10 December 2019 letter"–because that format doesn't use any commas. But most Americans find that format unacceptable.)
On second thought, I'll go with: Roadfan Inc. is a company based in Ohio.
Quote from: Rothman on December 10, 2019, 11:57:20 AM
On second thought, I'll go with: Roadfan Inc. is a company based in Ohio.
That would be correct, provided the company's name doesn't use a comma between "Roadfan" and "Inc."
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 09, 2019, 08:26:17 PM
He's correct. The comma after "Inc." is not optional. "Inc." is in the nature of an appositive, and appositives are set off by commas. It tells you which Roadfan is being mentioned. The year is similar–in CtrlAltDel's example, "2019" tells you which December 9 fell on a Monday. It's not necessarily essential information and it could be omitted. But if you include it, you have to put commas both before and after the year.
If an appositive is non-restrictive, then one should not use commas. If an appositive is restrictive, then one should use commas. The way to tell which is which is to remove the appositive from the sentence and see if it still makes sense.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (Note that using a comma at all has not been recommended by the Chicago Manual of Style since 1993.)
This, if it were a true appositive, would be restrictive. Both he and his father were named Martin Luther King, and therefore the 'Jr.' is required to tell the reader which one the sentence is about. Restrictive appositives are not set off with commas at all.
December 9, 2019
This, if it were a true appositive, might be restrictive in some cases and non-restrictive in others.
A volcano eruption in New Zealand left five people dead. That tragic event on December 9 has prompted local officials to...
A volcano eruption in New Zealand left five people dead. That tragic event on December 9, 2019, has prompted local officials to...
The addition of "2019" in the sentence above only adds extra detail that is not critical to the understanding of the sentence. As such, it could be interpreted as non-restrictive. Non-restrictive appositives are set off with a pair of commas.
However...
July 4 was to be a date that Jefferson's family would remember for centuries to come.
July 4, 1826, was to be a date that Jefferson's family would remember for centuries to come.
The addition of "1826" in the sentences above adds information necessary for the understanding of the sentence. Two important things happened In Thomas Jefferson's life on July 4: the thirteen colonies declared their independence on that date in 1776, and he died on that date in 1826. Knowing the year is a critical piece of information in reading the sentence. As such, it could be considered restrictive. Restrictive appositives are not set off with a pair of commas. So is that a case for writing it "July 4 1826" instead? Is it a case for omitting only the final comma? Is it a case for the year not really being like an appositive at all? I'm leaning toward the latter.
Wichita, Kansas
This is similar to the date issue explained above, but I'll change it slightly.
Wichita County was always my favorite place to go for Christmas vacation.
Wichita County, Texas, was always my favorite place to go for Christmas Vacation.
If I've only ever gone to one county named Wichita for Christmas vacation, then the addition of "Texas" might be unnecessary. In that case, it could be considered non-restrictive, and it would therefore need a pair commas to set it off. If, on the other hand, I was known to visit the Kansas county named Wichita sometimes as well, then it could be considered a restrictive appositive. As stated above, I'm leaning toward this being a case for the state name not really being like an appositive at all.
Roadfan, Inc.
The "Inc." is probably non-essential information, unless there's some other entity called Roadfan that the reader might call to mind instead. This is further muddied by the fact that the comma before "Inc." might be part of the company's official name, in which case omitting it at all wouldn't be good. To explain...
Roadfan Inc.
Roadfan, Inc.
If the entity's legal name includes the comma, then why would that fact alone require using another comma after "Inc."? After all, that doesn't somehow make it an appositive at all: it's simply part of the name.
Pfangle Dangle America
Pfangle Dangle, America
If I start a company called "Pfangle Dangle America", then you wouldn't put a comma after "America" in a sentence.
If I start a company called "Pfangle Dangle, America", then there's no real grammatical reason to put one after "America" either.
Quote from: 1995hoo on December 10, 2019, 12:01:28 PM
Quote from: Rothman on December 10, 2019, 11:57:20 AM
On second thought, I'll go with: Roadfan Inc. is a company based in Ohio.
That would be correct, provided the company’s name doesn’t use a comma between “Roadfan” and “Inc.”
While we're at it, I've always found including "Inc." (or LLC, Corp, et al) to a company's name on anything other than a legal document to be rather unctuous.