{"id":58596,"date":"2017-10-18T13:28:26","date_gmt":"2017-10-18T18:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=58596"},"modified":"2017-10-22T09:51:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T14:51:23","slug":"sick-oxford-comma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/","title":{"rendered":"I Am So Sick of Your Oxford Comma"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, a $10-million Maine lawsuit involving overtime pay for dairy workers was decided on the basis of the lack of an Oxford comma. The problem lay in the following list of activities for which workers could not receive overtime pay, to wit, \u201cThe canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In a Talmudic-style argument worthy of inclusion in the Passover Haggadah, the debate hinged on whether it was a list of eight activities [(1) canning, (2) processing, (3) preserving, (4) freezing, (5) drying, (6) marketing, (7) storing, (8) packing for shipment or distribution] or nine [(1) canning, (2) processing, (3) preserving, (4) freezing, (5) drying, (6) marketing, (7) storing, (8) packing for shipment or (9) distribution]. The employers maintained that it was a list of nine activities and that distribution is exempt from overtime. The workers argued that it was a list of eight items and only \u201cpacking for\u2026distribution\u201d was exempt from overtime but not distribution itself. Due to the lack of a comma, the court agreed that this was a reasonable interpretation.<\/span><\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t believe how many people gleefully forwarded me this article or tagged me in posts about it. You see, I am no fan of the Oxford comma and this was \u201cproof\u201d that my grammar opponents are correct.<\/span><\/p>\n

I disagree.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Oxford, or serial, comma is the comma that comes before the conjunction in such phrases as \u201cpencils, paper, and rubber bands\u201d or \u201cpancakes, oatmeal, or eggs.\u201d Those phrases, however, are equally clear without the serial comma:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI need pencils, paper and rubber bands.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWould you like pancakes, oatmeal or eggs for breakfast?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For this reason, some people (like the AP, the New York <\/span>Times<\/span><\/i> and me) consider the Oxford comma to be an ugly, unnecessary waste of space in most cases.<\/span><\/p>\n

The operative words are \u201cin most cases.\u201d Sometimes it\u2019s necessary to include the Oxford comma for clarity. I acknowledge that. It\u2019s equally true that sometimes it should be <\/span>omitted<\/span><\/i> for clarity but my opponents typically refuse to cede that point. They invariably provide a sentence in which the lack of an Oxford comma creates ambiguity, such as:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to thank my parents, Lady Gaga and King Kong.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The absence of a serial comma in that sentence certainly leaves open the possibility that the speaker is the offspring of a pop star and a giant ape. I then counter with an example in which the presence of a serial comma creates ambiguity, like:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI invited my mother, Maya Angelou, and the Pope.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There, the Oxford comma leaves open the possibility that Maya Angelou was my mother (she wasn\u2019t), a misconception that would be avoided with the removal of a comma.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a real-life example that I recently noticed in which a comma (albeit not a serial comma) can change a sentence\u2019s meaning. The Shemoneh Esrei, in <\/span>birkas Avodah<\/span><\/i> (the one that starts <\/span>r\u2019tzei<\/span><\/i>), reads in Hebrew, \u201c<\/span>R\u2019tzei Hashem Elokeinu b\u2019amcha Yisroel u\u2019v\u2019sfilosam v\u2019hasheiv es ha\u2019avodah lidvir beisecha v\u2019ishei Yisroel u\u2019sfilosam b\u2019ahava s\u2019kabeil b\u2019ratzon<\/span><\/i>\u2026.\u201d In English, \u201cBe pleased, Hashem our God, with Your nation Israel and with their prayer and return the service to the Holy of Holies of Your Temple and the fire-offerings of Israel and their prayer with love accept with favor\u2026.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

So where does the phrase \u201cfire-offering of Israel\u201d (<\/span>ishei Yisroel<\/span><\/i>) belong? The way I learned it, and the way I parse it when I daven for the <\/span>amud<\/span><\/i>, is \u201creturn the service to the Holy of Holies of Your Temple and the fire-offerings of Israel, and their prayer with love accept with favor\u2026\u201d but I have also seen it broken down by some translations (including Rabbi Sacks and ArtScroll) as \u201creturn the service to the Holy of Holies of Your Temple, and the fire-offerings of Israel and their prayer with love accept with favor\u2026.\u201d I hesitate to call either interpretation wrong but the intention of Shimon HaPakuli and Rabban Gamliel (who standardized the text of Shemoneh Esrei) is certainly unclear.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Jewish law, the same activity can be required in one context and prohibited in another. For example, we are not permitted to kill people on a whim \u2013 that\u2019s called murder. But there are situations in which we might be permitted or even required to kill, such as in the defense of innocents. We don\u2019t drive on Shabbos but we might require it if someone needs to go to the hospital. We don\u2019t eat on Yom Kippur but we might require it if someone is dangerously ill. These exceptions to the standard operating procedures are not optional. One can\u2019t opt out of calling Hatzalah on Shabbos when necessary, or even out of killing someone pursuing an innocent with murderous intent if that\u2019s what it takes to save the intended victim. Context matters.<\/span><\/p>\n

If we can accept that halacha conforms to context, should we be any stricter with the rules of punctuation? Whether you agree with my colleagues who feel that the Oxford comma is necessary, or whether you\u2019re correct like me in viewing it as a hideous aberration of all that is good and pure in the world, one should concede in cases where clarity is threatened by dogma. The rules exist to aid communication; if communication suffers, the rule has failed in that particular instance and we have to deal with it. If halacha allows sufficiently-ill people to eat on Yom Kippur, we can learn to be flexible with a comma every now and then.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few months ago, a $10-million Maine lawsuit involving overtime pay for dairy workers was decided on the basis of the lack of an Oxford comma. The problem lay in the following list of activities for which workers could not receive overtime pay, to wit, \u201cThe canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":384,"featured_media":58600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\nI Am So Sick of Your Oxford Comma - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If we can accept that halacha conforms to context, should we be any stricter with the Oxford comma and other rules of punctuation?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Am So Sick of Your Oxford Comma - OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If we can accept that halacha conforms to context, should we be any stricter with the Oxford comma and other rules of punctuation?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OU Life\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-10-18T18:28:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-10-22T14:51:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/comma-1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"3500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/\",\"name\":\"I Am So Sick of Your Oxford Comma - OU Life\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/comma-1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-10-18T18:28:26+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-10-22T14:51:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/50551cbad585e4b2a31b4b0227e06c1c\"},\"description\":\"If we can accept that halacha conforms to context, should we be any stricter with the Oxford comma and other rules of punctuation?\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/comma-1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/comma-1.jpg\",\"width\":3500,\"height\":2000,\"caption\":\"Green plant branch willow with leafs isolated on a white background\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/\",\"name\":\"OU Life\",\"description\":\"Everyday Jewish Living\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/50551cbad585e4b2a31b4b0227e06c1c\",\"name\":\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Jack-Abramowitz_avatar-96x96.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Jack-Abramowitz_avatar-96x96.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz\"},\"description\":\"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz is Torah Content Editor at the Orthodox Union. He is the author of six books, including The Tzniyus Book and The Taryag Companion. His latest work, The God Book, is available from OU Press as well as on Amazon.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/author\/rabbi-jack-abramowitz\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"I Am So Sick of Your Oxford Comma - OU Life","description":"If we can accept that halacha conforms to context, should we be any stricter with the Oxford comma and other rules of punctuation?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"I Am So Sick of Your Oxford Comma - OU Life","og_description":"If we can accept that halacha conforms to context, should we be any stricter with the Oxford comma and other rules of punctuation?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/","og_site_name":"OU Life","article_published_time":"2017-10-18T18:28:26+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-10-22T14:51:23+00:00","og_image":[{"width":3500,"height":2000,"url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/comma-1.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/","name":"I Am So Sick of Your Oxford Comma - OU Life","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/comma-1.jpg","datePublished":"2017-10-18T18:28:26+00:00","dateModified":"2017-10-22T14:51:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/50551cbad585e4b2a31b4b0227e06c1c"},"description":"If we can accept that halacha conforms to context, should we be any stricter with the Oxford comma and other rules of punctuation?","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/inspiration\/sick-oxford-comma\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/comma-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/comma-1.jpg","width":3500,"height":2000,"caption":"Green plant branch willow with leafs isolated on a white background"},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/","name":"OU Life","description":"Everyday Jewish Living","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/50551cbad585e4b2a31b4b0227e06c1c","name":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Jack-Abramowitz_avatar-96x96.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/files\/Rabbi-Jack-Abramowitz_avatar-96x96.jpg","caption":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz"},"description":"Rabbi Jack Abramowitz is Torah Content Editor at the Orthodox Union. He is the author of six books, including The Tzniyus Book and The Taryag Companion. His latest work, The God Book, is available from OU Press as well as on Amazon.","url":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/author\/rabbi-jack-abramowitz\/"}]}},"acf":[],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58596"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58598,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58596\/revisions\/58598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}