Sunday, March 19, 2017

Fascinating story about a comma, and a court case




An Oxford comma changed this court case completely.

A group of dairy drivers argued that they deserved overtime pay for certain tasks they had completed. The company said they did not. An appeals court sided with the drivers, saying that the guidelines themselves were made too ambiguous by, you guessed it, a lack of an Oxford comma.

I don’t like the Oxford comma either, but I do agree that readers need to be able to understand the point of what is being written.
And kudos to the drivers for their win.

The story is here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/15/health/oxford-comma-maine-court-case-trnd/index.html?sr=fbCNN031517oxford-comma-maine-court-case-trnd0450PMStoryLink&linkId=35504124

Read and enjoy.

The Oxford comma may not be as quite dead as has been reported.


Helen Woodall


No comments: