/lit/ - Literature

Yes. It's a simple solution to avoiding ambiguity and I like the aesthetic of a hard division between words.
>inb4 your sentence shouldn't be ambiguous to begin with

>>10616011
Yeah! The less ambiguity the better.

I get angry when people don't use it

a resounding yes

>>10616011
It is the only way. Multiple times-seconding the ambiguity argument.

I irrationally dislike it because I knew a bunch of girls who made big deal about it in high school. They were the obnoxious type who would've been into "good grammar is sexy" tote bags and the like. I guess there's nothing inherently wrong with it, just seems like a stupid thing that people pretend to care about because it makes them seem "intellectual."

>>10616121
Imagine being this contrarian. Disliking something because some nobody somewhere at some time used it for vanity.

>>10616126
I know it's not a "real" reason, just an association I formed. My view is that you should use it if it would clear up ambiguity, but otherwise who cares?

>>10616051
kek

Why is this only an issue in English? In other languages the oxford comma is considered invalid grammar.

>>10616145
I wish it existed in my Spanish

It's not like it's hard to do, if anything it should come naturally when you're writing

Yea.

They can be used or not used deliberately in the same work for comedic effect. If they were not used always, the assumption would have to be that they were always there in meaning, and you couldn't have hilarious things like in OP's picture happen.

Just use a colon and a semicolon like to which you're supposed.

>We invited: the strippers; J.F.K., and; Stalin.

>>10616214
>We invited: the strippers; J.F.K., and; Stalin

are my eyes being raped?

>>10616225
>implying that doesn't grammatically make sense
Plebe

The lack of contextual clues seems extremely rare so I don't see it as that big a deal. English can omit nearly anything so why not commas too.

>>10616214
Looks ugly.

>>10616225
Seriously though this is exactly what you're supposed to do for lists longer than three items, or lists with complex multi-word items. People usually limit lists to three items just to avoid doing this.

You, should use, comma, as often as possible.

>>10616214
>>10616281
You would only use semicolons if an item in the list itself contains a comma

>>10616214

Both are wrong.
>We invited, the strippers, J.F.K, and, Stalin.

>>10616287
This, also in your >>10616214 example an "and" is all by itself between semicolons. You have the right idea, but it's no surprise people think it looks strange.

>>10616308
That's falling out of favor, though.

>>10616287
Or, if each thing in the list contain more than one or three words; so it's more like this; blah bleh blo—aha!

>>10616313
Either that or no commas at all.
>We invited the strippers JFK and stalin. (Cause there's no confusion when spoken out-loud or with context.)
To imply that the strippers are JFK and Stalin:
>We invited the strippers: JFK and Stalin. (Colon would be a pause and some sort of gesture IRL)

>>10616287
>>10616310
>>10616316
>>10616351
Nope. Depends on the styleguide, i.e. the type of writing. MLA, Chicago, APA, etc. I Forget which one but my example is perfect under one of them. Don't use semicolons in fiction at all.

But really plurals should end the sentence

I use it when I feel like it

Yae
It is easy to add and does nothing but clarify.
It is similar adding the apostrophe to "it's" in order to differentiate it from its. Yeah, the two have different meanings, but so does "the strippers, Stalin and Trotsky" vs "the strippers, Stalin, and Trotsky"

>>10616214
That semicolon implies that, the strippers, are in fact: JFK and Stalin.

>>10616447
Oh nevermind, I missed the second semicolon. Which is a good indicator that it (even if it's correct) should be avoided.

>>10616392
c://thread

>>10616011
Commas are unaesthetic. You should try to avoid them in your writing as much as possible.

>>10616472
Don't read Henry James

I don’t get it, surely it’s just speaking English properly.
You use the comma in a list to distinguish the items in that list. in OP, you are inviting three items, so you use commas to separate them so they are received as three separate items.

>tfw taught at an early age not to use the oxford comma
>later on in school teachers get frustrated when i dont use it
>they dont mark off points, just suggest i use it
>i dont use it, cause it makes me feel like a kind of literary rebel
>i still dont use it to this day and every once in a while i find someone else that doesnt use it and there's this sort of "we're the last of our kind" bonding moment

>>10616383
kek
Use it where it makes sense, you styleguidefag

>>10616011
Saying the serial comma categorically eliminates ambiguity is incorrect. There are instances in which it creates ambiguity, in fact. E.g. "we invited the stripper, JFK[,] and Stalin."
With the serial comma, it is ambiguous whether JFK is a stripper. Without the serial comma, it is unambiguous.
Thus any argument for the serial comma on the basis that it "eliminates ambiguity" (q.v. >>10616043 >>10616051 et al.) is specious and should not be taken seriously.

>>10616492
or Virginia Woolf

>>10616589
>>With the serial comma, it is ambiguous whether JFK is a stripper.
only if you are taught that a comma is for series and something else. If you are taught only about series, then it is clear that JFK is not the stripper.

So is this mainly an american thing? Cause if it is i'm happy to keep avoiding it.

>>10616614
But commas are for things other than series. Most relevantly, they are used to set off appositives, for which "JFK" could be mistaken in the sentence.
Moreover, even if commas were only used for series, the ambiguity would not exist in the original image, for it is the same question (is this unit another item in a series, or is it an appositive describing what comes before the comma?) that is the source of potential ambiguity.

>>10616640
The serial comma is mostly British. Standard American usage is to omit the serial comma.

>>10616667
>In American English, a majority of style guides mandate use of the serial comma
?

>>10616673
>quote
>no source
A+

to be clear is it stupid to begin with the strippers and clearly the '':'' is useful here.>>10616351
>>We invited the strippers: JFK and Stalin.


Overall, do not follow people who create problems because they cling to poor frameworks

>>10616678
Well it was from wikipedia obviously.

>>10616011
I invited Stalin, my brother, and JFK.

Nice going, Oxford comma, now I don't know if I invited my brother or if Stalin is my brother.

>>10616640
>>10616667
>In American English, a majority of style guides mandate use of the serial comma
>It is used less often in British English
How come it's called the Oxford comma then?

>>10618379
I invited Stalin (my brother) and JFK.

:P

>>10616011
Maybe this is just because I'm used to the Oxford comma, but when there isn't one, I don't read a "pause" like I do with the other items in the list. I read that first example as "the strippers [pause] jfk [pause] and stalin", but the other I read as "the strippers [pause] jfk and stalin"

>>10616589
I actually never thought about this. Thanks man.

>>10616051
That is how language works

>>10618379
if he were ur bro:
>I invited Stalin, my brother; and JFK.
if you were mediating the UN while hanging with ur bro:
>I invited Stalin, JFK, and my brother.

>>10616011
its aesthetically more pleasing, i see no reason not to use it

>>10616011
my own personal style guide says that if the meaning of a sentence is changed by the presence or otherwise of an oxford comma, it would often be better to rewrite the sentence from scratch

>>10616011
imagine how boring you have to be to enjoy jokes about punctuation

>>10616155
same, writing in spanish and adding an oxford comma accidentally is my most common error.

>>10616534
My thoughts.

WHO GIVES A FUCK