Talk:Comma quibbling

last comma

The pubs people of IBM (where I worked quite a few years) taught me that a list in (American) English should be

 "{ABC, DEF, G, and H}"

Any opinions?? --Walterpachl (talk) 15:15, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

Eric Lipperts' blog entry states that the task excludes the Oxford comma. -Paddy3118 (talk) 16:47, 6 October 2013 (UTC)

I think your IBM buddies are correct, and leaving out the Oxford comma is imprecise. It bothered me enough that I immediately looked at this page to see if there was discussion. Oh well, the task specifically states that the list shall be constructed in this ambiguous and sometimes unintentionally funny (buzzfeed) way. Danaj (talk) 16:09, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I was taught (American English) that the Oxford comma was optional, but the list is better with it than without.

Consider a list of people (or couples):

Albert and Alice, Bob, Cal and Cindy, Matt and Mandy, and Zach
Albert and Alice, Bob, Cal and Cindy, Matt and Mandy, Zach
Albert and Alice, Bob, Cal and Cindy, Matt and Mandy and Zach

where Zach (in the 3^rd form) appears to be a threesome with Matt and Mandy.
Note that Bob and Zach are meant to be shown as alone (as not part of a couple in this case).
-- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 09:24, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Also, see: visual proof for the need of an Oxford comma.

-- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 00:27, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Sirs, I covered just this eventuality, methinks by the use of quibbling in the title ;-)
--Paddy3118 (talk) 18:02, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

I too looked at this page to see if there is a discussion of Oxford comma. I prefer the use of Oxford comma, although it is not used in this task; however you could do that some program will have a Oxford variant in addition to the non-Oxford form in case you really like Oxford comma. This is just the idea and is not really the task specification, though. --Zzo38 (talk) 06:47, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

missing comma?

                           Let's eat, Grandma.
                           Let's eat Grandma.

Punctuation saves lives.

-- Gerard Schildberger (talk) 13:37, 29 November 2019 (UTC)