/lit/ - Literature

the oxford comma should be used all the time just for consistency i reckon.

sometimes it isnt necessary tho but eh

that isn't how and works. i had toast and apple juice doesn't mean i poured apple juice onto my toast.

>>4689953

It depends on your interpretation of the text but yeah I'd agree. Language is a social construct after all.

I was taught not to as far back as first grade so that's what I'm sticking with.

>>4689953
You missed the point. He's speaking to the toast and orange juice. There's probably no reason for the orange juice to be poured on the toast in the image.

>>4689959
How Can Language Be Real If Our Mouths Aren't Real?

>>4689953

Yeah but you wouldn't use the Oxford Comma in there in the first place.

More commas is always bett

I wish my toast and orange juice would talk to me.

>>4689963
How Can I Scream When I Have No Mouth?

>>4689953
>I had toast and apple juice
I put some apples and a slice of toast into a blender and made toast and apple juice.

I was taught to always use it, so I do it out of habit but it also makes sense. It's consistent, so there's a nice aesthetic there, and it eliminates the possibility of confusion as your picture illustrates.

>>4689966
>tfw no talking breakfast>>4689966

>>4689972
This

>>4689975
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9dK-r0htXI

>>4689946
English is objectively a bad language
The sooner we accept that, the sooner we can get on with our lives

>>4689969

This is also a valid interpretation.

>>4689998

It's a natural language so there are ambiguities.

If you want to get rid of ambiguities use propositional and predicate logic.

>>4689946

If the example in OP made any sort of sense I'd agree.

As it stands the Oxford comma is useful only to prevent accidental surrealism, which is the best kind of surrealism, so I guess the Oxford comma is useless.

Goats are like raspberries if you shoot a duck I'm scared of toasters.

>>4689946
>What does /lit/ think?
Oh that's silly. Toast can't talk.

>>4690144
what if you add orange juice to it, beautiful?

>>4690005
NO , not at all , buddy , english is specially fucked cause it is waaaay too mixed in a very fuckin special way so hard u cant spell words well and u cant have much verbal logic.MUH LATIN LANGUAGES MASTER RACE

>>4689946
Your sentence was retarded. Consider this:

I went to the store with my brothers, Tim, and Eric.
I went to the store with my brothers, Tim and Eric.

>>4690426
>That ambiguity caused by the oxford.
>Thank you for revealing the true meaning of who gives a fuck about an oxford comma.

>>4690426
I went to the store with my brothers, Tim and Eric.
I went to the store with my brothers: Tim and Eric.

Completely unnecessary. A good writer avoids phrases where an oxford comma would be needed

writing just looks better without the oxford comma. with the oxford comma there's just too many commas and lots of extraneous commas is like the top sign of someone with a poor grasp on writing conventions. aesthetics over clarity every time.

>>4690426
Exactly. In the case of this sentence, "Tim and Eric" are one item. However, if "Tim" and "Eric" were two separate items, without the oxford comma it would appear as if they were one. The first sentence actually has an oxford comma, without it, it would read: "I went to the store with my brothers Tim and Eric."

>>4690493
So a good writer avoids saying anything that has more than two nouns as its object?

>>4690504
Clarity is the best aesthetic.

Cormac Macarthy doesn't stand for this shit. Cut those commas OUT

>>4690417
English is just a fusion of Saxon and Latin. It's the best of both worlds; It has the ridiculously high vocab count of Latin with the super easy grammar of Saxon languages.

>>4690534
Cormac Macarthy is a shitty YA writer who probably learnt how to write by reading the back of glue bottles while he was sniffing them.

>>4690548
>Cormac Macarthy is a shitty YA writer
>There are people who actually tell this to themselves

>>4690551
>there are people older than 13 who read Cormac Macarthy novels

>>4690551
Underage detected.

>>4690552
>>4690555
>samefagging with a very odd and obscure opinion

>>4690561
>little kid gets outed
>s-s-s-s-s-s-samfegging!

>>4690561
Back to reddit with you, buckaroo. I hear they have /r/books if you want to talk about Macarthy!

>>4690561
>Multiple people can tell I'm 12!
>I noes! I tells them there one person! xD

>>4690566
>>4690565
>>4690573

samefagging is a way of life for you, isn't it?

>>4689946
>I need Oxford Commas because I'm to autistic to get the context

>>4690565
>>4690566
>>4690573

Yikes.

>>4690566
dubs
>>4690580
>stop samfegging, shitLORD, muh patriarchy!

>>4690596
are you even reading what you're posting or are you just screaming at the keyboard and pressing enter

>hurf durf this is how people on the internet argue right???

I still use it.
>>4689961
>I was taught not to as far back as first grade so that's what I'm sticking with.
I was taught throughout my entire life.

>>4689988
>dadrock

>>4690548
>being this pleb

people who don't use the oxford comma are the same people who keep using the word "literally" incorrectly

>>4689946
does it count with "or"?

>Be taught to always use a comma before and, but never told it was called an "Oxford Comma"
>Shitty Vampire Weekend song comes out
>What the hell is an Oxford Comma?
>Oh

There are people that consider the second to be the correct way to write that? Never paid much attention to it but I would never write it any way other than the first...

>>4689946

That calling, to the correct use of a punctuation mark, "oxford comma" is absolutely stupid, and also a /lit/ meme; therefore, an automated post.

I think the vast majority of the time, it's not needed and unless you're a retard, you can figure out what is meant.

But for the sake of consistency, and because at this point it's just the proper way to do it, I always use the Oxford Comma.

>read this thread
>have revelation that there are people who somehow don't use the oxford comma

Who are you illiterate fucks and where do you live?

Can this be a general grammar thread? Why is Chicago style so retarded? AP wins on every single point I've read thus far.

>tfw oxford reject

>>4689946
Every institution uses Oxford Commas except for print news, and that's only an affectation of times past where ink wasn't cheap and they saved a few bucks, and space, here and there by printing fewer commas.

AP is the only style that still refuses to use the Oxford comma, and it's mostly out of posterity and habit these days.

you're not conscripted to use it just because it's proper but to say it's incorrect is just wrong

>>4689946
>that second picture

Even if I was a non-native english speaker I doubt my mind would make that kind of connection

In Italian we do not follow the Oxford comma.
"I saw Pino, Giacomo e Matteo yesterday"

>>4689946
See, as long as you are more intelligent than a tumblr user (in other words, an ape), either way should be fine.

unless it's a machine that's doing the interpretation, no one is going to assume you put juice in your bread.

>>4690541
No , It has many french and nordic influences , DO U EVEN HISTORY ANGLO SCUMBAG!!!!

>>4692804
Latin languages are much more clear and varieted
SUCH MU MALE AND FEMALE PRONOUNS ANGLO SCUMBAG!!

>>4690417
>latin languages
>good
Hi I'm French would you like 6 letters for one fucking vowel sound?

>people that don't like English because of ambiguities
How else are we supposed to have puns and wordplay.

>>4692825
U should be pround of having a so beautiful language as your mother one.....

>>4692891
U should be relieved of not being part of a broken , ambiguos and hard to spell language.

>>4690514
why would anyone think Tim and Eric were one person?

>>4693000
First name: Tim
Middle Name: and
Surname: Eric

>>4693009
the sentence said brothers and why would their middle name start with a lowercase letter?

>>4693017
It's PoMo, baby I ain't gotta explain shit.

>>4693000
>why would anyone think Tim and Eric were one person?
He said "item", not "person".

>>4692825

>complaining about speaking the second-best language in the world by native tongue

When Anglophones want to sound cultured, they use a French phrase.

But yeah, French be crazy. pain au chocolat became pains aux chocolates, or some shit, like you pluralize all three.

>>4693383
it's obvious the sentence is about two people but i guess
>>4693030
is right

AP Style has banned the oxford comma and it's fucking annoying.

>>4693431
Frogspeak is shit.

>>4693431
It's "pains au chocolat". "pains aux chocolats" implies there're many breads containing many type of chocolate.

But yeah, "le petit chat" become "les petits chats" at plural and "les petites chattes" at feminine plural.

>

>>4692068
In Dutch we're not allowed to use a comma as they do in oxford. Conjuctions and disjunctions are their own comma.

>>4695535

>we inveetied jfk, stalin and the strippers.

solved.

>>4696005
>stalin and the strippers

sounds like a band name

>>4696000
This is what happens when you have an official regulatory body for a language. They issue proclamations on how to properly do things, and you can't even argue about it on the Internet.

>>4696005
I like how it's alphabetazied

Less is more.
McCarthy.

>>4696040
McCarthy isn't the epitome of literature. Stop acting like he is.

>>4696040

NOTHING IS NOT MORE.

>>4696046
I like the way his words just flow. Only retards with limited attention spans need unnecessary punctuation. Good writing doesnt need it. McCarthy is a good writer.

>>4696051
I hate him. I always have to reread sentences when I realize a few paragraphs later that it was actually dialogue.

>>4696057
>not paying attention
Your fault.

>>4696040
>>4696046
>>4696051
>>4696057

YOU ARE ONE PERSON.

IF YOU ARE MY FELLOW FIRECARRIER FROM /x/, POST SOMETHING THAT AFFIRMS IT.

nope it just looks so out of place to me.

>>4696057
Just wait until you read Ulysses. The dialogue is always pretty clear, what isn't clear however is the transition from narration or dialogue to internal thoughts as Joyce just drops it in whenever he feels like it. It takes quite a while getting adjusted, particularly in Stephen's episodes when so many high-brow references are running through his head

>>4695136

Hold up. "Pains au chocolat" is the plural? I pulled that other shit off a site about French pastries. It's in my book so I better damned well get it right before final edit.

God damn, French is ridiculous. Pretty but intolerably vexing.

>>4689998
in the eyes of the linguist, all languages are equal. there are no "inferior" languages. every language has ambiguities and rules that are not universal

In hungarian, we use both to make emphasis and not to have to describe the whole situation.
>John sings and writes ballads.
John is a person who sings ballads and writes ballads.
>John sings, and writes ballads.
John is singing currently, and in the meanwhile, he is penning up some ballads.
So my question would be: why not both? Why 'ban' no comma?

>>4697653
No, VSO ordered languages are inherently the best.

>>4697616
>"Pains au chocolat" is the plural?
Yes. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pains_au_chocolat

I can understand you thinking that French can be ridiculous at times, but in this example it's as >>4695136 said, because it's only logical. Pains aux chocolats, although I don't remember seeing it ever written like that, could be used to indicate a "pain" with multiple, different chocolates.

>>4697750
>Pain(s) aux chocolats [...] could be used to indicate "pain(s)" with multiple, different chocolates.
Fixed, sorry, but you get the point.

>>4697616
Why is it ridiculous? "Au chocolat" is the complement of your noun. That's why you don't make it agree with the noun.

If you have banana bread it will always be "aux bananes", no matter how many breads you have, because it take more than one banana to make a bread. So "un pain aux bananes" and "deux painS aux bananes".

That's also why "chocolat" is singular, you can't count chocolate when you can count banana.

>>4697668
>John sings, and writes ballads.
no literate person would write like that.

>>4698647
I don't think you took a good example, because you could have also said "un pain à la banane" or "des pains à la banane", which would have been correct. And why wouldn't you be able to count chocolates? White, dark, milk, etc. I've eaten ten chocolates.