Let's Have a Funny Pic Thread! Mk XXIII

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Help!I'maRock! said:
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Fair warning: This stupid cartoon triggers me every time I see it.

First off, let's stop calling it the Oxford comma, as if that lends it an air of sophistication and authority. It's just a serial comma.

Secondly, most people encounter AP style every single day of their lives because it's used on the vast majority of news sites on the internet, and that style recommends omitting the serial comma in most cases. Nobody notices the "missing comma." Ever. A good rule of thumb is if the omission of the comma is causing a readability issue, there's probably some other underlying problem with the text, and the sentence should be recast. (Moreover, there can be equally ambiguous statements with a serial comma, such as "We invited your mother, Stalin, and JFK." Is that three people, or is Stalin your mother?)

Anyway, that's just from my 10+ years experience in writing and editing AP-style text for news publication. I actually do use the serial comma for everything else. (And I write like crap when I'm not getting paid for it.)
 
Tralfaz said:
Fair warning: This stupid cartoon triggers me every time I see it.

First off, let's stop calling it the Oxford comma, as if that lends it an air of sophistication and authority. It's just a serial comma.

Secondly, most people encounter AP style every single day of their lives because it's used on the vast majority of news sites on the internet, and that style recommends omitting the serial comma in most cases. Nobody notices the "missing comma." Ever. A good rule of thumb is if the omission of the comma is causing a readability issue, there's probably some other underlying problem with the text, and the sentence should be recast. (Moreover, there can be equally ambiguous statements with a serial comma, such as "We invited your mother, Stalin, and JFK." Is that three people, or is Stalin your mother?)

Anyway, that's just from my 10+ years experience in writing and editing AP-style text for news publication. I actually do use the serial comma for everything else. (And I write like crap when I'm not getting paid for it.)
Click to expand...
bbc06dad387f13e1da4cdbe6794481ef.jpg
 
Tralfaz said:
Fair warning: This stupid cartoon triggers me every time I see it.

First off, let's stop calling it the Oxford comma, as if that lends it an air of sophistication and authority. It's just a serial comma.

Secondly, most people encounter AP style every single day of their lives because it's used on the vast majority of news sites on the internet, and that style recommends omitting the serial comma in most cases. Nobody notices the "missing comma." Ever. A good rule of thumb is if the omission of the comma is causing a readability issue, there's probably some other underlying problem with the text, and the sentence should be recast. (Moreover, there can be equally ambiguous statements with a serial comma, such as "We invited your mother, Stalin, and JFK." Is that three people, or is Stalin your mother?)

Anyway, that's just from my 10+ years experience in writing and editing AP-style text for news publication. I actually do use the serial comma for everything else. (And I write like crap when I'm not getting paid for it.)
Click to expand...

As someone who has edited many hundreds of thousands of pages of text over the years: ^^ THIS ^^
 
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