Sunday, February 11, 2018

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From the Department of Wait, What: Do you remember the 2017 court case in which the absence of an Oxford comma (or serial comma) was crucial? The section of the Maine law at issue in that case has been amended in an unusually ungainly way: by the addition not of one comma but of eight semicolons.

Before:

The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:

(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.
After:
The canning; processing; preserving; freezing; drying; marketing; storing; packing for shipment; or distributing of:

(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.
What I would consider a real improvement:
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, or distributing of:

(1) agricultural produce,
(2) meat or fish products, or
(3) perishable foods.
Replacing the semicolons is common (or comma) sense. Replacing and with or forestalls the persnickety argument that the provision (which governs overtime pay) applies to work with meat and fish products or to work with all three categories of foodstuffs. The legislature did get something right in changing distribution to distributing: the new word lines up with the other gerunds.

comments: 11

The Arthurian said...

Changing seven commas to eight commas might be seen as an admission that an error had been made. Changing seven commas to eight semicolons, well, that's obviously a revision. Not a correction.

Nice find. Also, nice catch of "and" versus "or".

Michael Leddy said...

“Obviously a revision. Not a correction.” Yes. :)

Fresca said...

I saw that article and thought of you!
I almost sent it to you, but then I thought, naw he'll see it, there in Newcastle. ;)

Michael Leddy said...

Newcastle? That sounds like a reference to something, but I’m lost.

Frex said...

I felt that pointing out the article to Orange Crate Art would be like carrying coals to Newcastle. :)

Michael Leddy said...

Oh! I thought it might be a line from a novel, “He’ll see it, there in Newcastle.”

Fresca said...

There's a fiction-writing prompt!

The Arthurian said...

In unrelated reading (pdf) I find this sentence:

"These higher rates of return for most industries were offset by declines in rates of return in agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting; mining; utilities; and nondurable-goods manufacturing."

The punctuation brings itself to my attention (which is a negative, not a positive). However, the punctuation makes me realize that I should be able to find "agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting" listed as ONE category in documents where mining, utilities, and nondurable-goods manufacturing are listed as three separate categories. And then their punctuation makes so much sense to me that I don't feel the need to go looking for such documents.

Confidence, I guess. The punctuation they use gives me confidence in the details of what they have written. And that allows me to trust the bigger picture they present. Funny how that works.

I might have written that sentence as:
"These higher rates of return for most industries were offset by declines in rates of return in mining, utilities, nondurable-goods manufacturing, and agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting."
But no. That doesn't seem to work. It seems better to have the punctuation draw attention to itself. Plus, I don't like forcing agriculture to the last position on their primary list. Ag is usually first on such lists.

"These higher rates of return for most industries were offset by declines in rates of return in agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting, and in mining, utilities, and nondurable-goods manufacturing."

That works, I think. Thanks for listening.

Michael Leddy said...

“The menu offered limited choices: egg and bacon; egg, sausage, and bacon; egg and Spam; egg, bacon, and Spam; and egg, bacon, sausage, and Spam.”

I used to use that sentence on a classroom handout about the semicolon.

In your sentence, I like commas better. The semicolons aren’t wrong, but they seem like overkill when there’s only one group of items in a series that would make semicolons necessary.

What do you think about rearranging the series “agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting”? Since reading Bruce Ross-Larson’s Edit Yourself, I find myself thinking twice about every series. “Fishing, hunting, forestry, and agriculture” would order the items by length, as the series “mining, utilities, nondurable-goods manufacturing” is ordered.

The Arthurian said...

Overkill, yes. That's what was wrong with the original version.

My impression is that "agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting" is a technical term, or at least the standard way of listing those items. As a hobbyist dabbling in economics, I try to mimic standard forms rather than attempting to improve them. I so desperately wanted to use "delever" most of the time when "deleverage" was the sole form of that word that was ever used, a few years back. "He wanted to deleverage." What? No! He wanted to delever.

It's like that with "agriculture, yadda, yadda, yadda" also. I would notice if "agriculture" ended up other than first in sequence. And I think that people who know more than I do about econ would notice if I listed the terms in a nonstandard order. I think I would look like an amateur (which of course I am).

I do think yours sounds better, though, with the words rearranged by length. I had forgotten about your Long and short post. That was a good one.

Michael Leddy said...

Yep — I just did a DuckDuckGo search (trying to get away from Google) and found “agriculture, forestry, fishing, and hunting” as a standard series. Who knew? (Not me.)