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Assume v. Presume

This recent chat about grammar has proven prophetic. It's in the news last night and this morning about the re-introduction of spelling and grammar tests in schools, with the usual vox-pop street interviews with adults who can't tell their arse from their elbow as far as grammar is concerned.

However (this will really set the cat amongst the pigeons), the example question that is on Breakfast this morning is to place commas in a sentence that contains a list of five elements, three commas required.

I have a problem with this. I use (what I refer to as) "rational" or "logical" punctuation rather than "received" punctuation. Received punctuation dictates that the penultimate element in a list structure omits the comma prior to the list terminator "and" (inclusive list) or "or" (exclusive list). Example:

"When I went shopping I bought some apples, pears, peaches and a Topfield."

Four list elements, two commas.

I say this is illogical. What if the list elements individually contain "and" or "or"?

"For tonight's fish supper we need knives and forks, salt and pepper, napkins and napkin rings and the fish and chips."

It doesn't work. I do not understand what the heck is wrong with including the comma after the penultimate list element immediately prior to the list terminator, to emphasise that it is the list terminator and not a compound element in the list. This is what I do, what I will continue to do, and it will take a very strong reason to divert me from it (received wisdom would have omitted the previous comma!).

"When I went shopping I bought some apples, pears, peaches, and a Humax."

Much better.

Where I will omit the comma after the penultimate element is when there are only two elements, eg "apples and pears", but I have no hesitation in using a comma even there if it clarifies the sentence structure (if spoken, there would normally be a pause to punctuate the flow - and pauses equal commas!). I have noticed the traditional punctuation used by the older generation puts a comma after the "and" in the expectation of a pause there!

Lists of lists (each subordinate list containing more than two elements, whereas in the fish supper example above the subordinate lists have two elements each) get even more complicated. My preference is to avoid them altogether (use a proper list presentation using bullets or numbering), or (if the sentence structure is necessary in context) employ the semicolon as the major separator and the comma as the separator in the subordinate lists. You will find that I use this convention even in a bulleted list, terminating each bullet point with a semicolon and the whole list with a full stop.

Of course, it is independent and creative thinking such as this which never got me good marks.
 
But you don't need the comma in "When I went shopping I bought some apples, pears, peaches, and a Humax." as it is unambiguous without it. The sentence "For tonight's fish supper we need knives and forks, salt and pepper, napkins and napkin rings and the fish and chips." is also not ambiguous because your inclusion of the 'the' before 'fish and chips' indicating that 'fish and chips' is one item in the list. However, had you omitted the 'the' then you would have needed the comma between the 'rings' and the 'and' before 'fish' to remove the subsequent ambiguity. The second large paragraph here, clarifies the Oxford take on the subject, which seems to support my uneducated stab at it above.
 
Fair enough, but like I said my style is to use the comma as a logical list element separator, regardless of whether one could be implied by context. I don't see the need to make a decision based on individual exact circumstances (which could go either way), I prefer a definite syntactical regularity. I am pleased to now know it is recognised and supported as the Oxford Comma; I think your link pretty much sums up my own views so if you think you are contrary to me I must have expressed myself badly.

I deliberately structured my examples that way to see what response it got, I am gratified that somebody spotted it.
 
I've always known that as the Oxford comma too. Mind you, I'm known for over-using commas in general. When I typed up my Wife's dissertation for her some years ago she had to go through and remove a fair number of them, something which she still brings up from time to time!

Now back to the logomachy!
 
When I am editing I find I have to remove commas all over the place. Sometimes commas get used to break into and exit from an aside - in that case (when the clause can be removed without altering the sense of the sentence) I prefer to extract the clause into parentheses.

The dash (see above) is another strategy; I use it when neither a comma, colon, nor semicolon fit the bill (semicolons separate major clauses, commas separate minor clauses, colons imply the following is a specific example or application of the previous clause) but it is difficult to explain precisely (which could mean I don't understand my own rules).
af123 said:
logomachy
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How the heck did you come across that?? Surely it must count as word of the week!
 
I think I would sidestep the isssue and write

"For tonight's fish supper we need knives & forks, salt & pepper, napkins & napkin rings and the fish & chips."

:D
 
Oh yes, I do like to use an ampersand (subject of a radio programme a while ago, where it was shown that the "main in the street" doesn't know what it's called).
 
gomezz said:
I think I would sidestep the isssue and write

"For tonight's fish supper we need knives & forks, salt & pepper, napkins & napkin rings and the fish & chips."

:D
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I would leave out the napkins & rings, and replace the pepper with vinegar. Who has pepper on fish & chips?:hungry:
 
Wot a common erk! I suppose you want them on a copy of the Sport as well. This place is too posh for you!
 
Black Hole said:
I find most people who have started using WP with no formal training in typing have no idea about the double-space sentence separator. When I receive copy for a newsletter I edit, quite often it contains en-dashes or em-dashes because the WP has auto-replaced a hyphen dash (but I have decided to use hyphen dashes throughout that particular publication).
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Double space is a typing thing, certainly. Those of us who studied typesetting don't use double space, just an end of sentence space! :)

People who know nothing about printing use underlining extensively too, rather than bold, italic or large text!

There has been a lot of change going from print to typing, then to computer typesetting, and some of the cost cutting measures introduced by typists and also to make printing cheaper (double space, no endash and emdash, etc) are no longer relevant.

By the way, I don't think the French ever used longer spaces between sentences, hence \frenchspacing in TeX. TeX sets end of sentence space after a full stop automatically, unless you force a normal space, eg, in Prof.~Essor.
 
Regrettably the end-of-sentence space isn't (as far as I know) a practical proposition, coming at it from the WP direction.

(If the Frogs don't, it sounds a good reason to end-of-sentence - by double space if necessary!)
 
Black Hole said:
Regrettably the end-of-sentence space isn't (as far as I know) a practical proposition, coming at it from the WP direction.
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There is no reason a WP program can't add extra space after most full stops the way TeX does. There would be the option to reduce it in special cases.

Alternatively, typing two spaces could easily cause a long space to be displayed. TeX does a similar thing with -, -- and ---. (Those can be set up as shortcuts in word processors.)
 
Trev said:
You hit the space bar twice in Word:frantic:
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You get an emdash by typing two hyphens like--this, but the instructions for an endash say type like -- this, which is wrong, as it sticks two spaces in, either side of the endash. They shouldn't be there.

It's better to set up autotext so that [dash][dash] is replaced with an endash – and [endash][dash]is replaced with an emdash —.

That way, typing -- gives an endash and typing --- an emdash.
 
Bear in mind that typesetting rules were designed to make the typesetter's job easier. Now that is hardly a consideration then the rules will change to suit the modern world where people format their own output for the screen and few are obsessive enough try and makes things fit and look the way it was before.

After all we would not make the modern London cabby still be legally bound to carry a bale of hay for their horse ... Oh wait, yes we do! ;)
 
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