Editing 2995: University Commas

{{comic
| number    = 2995
| date      = October 7, 2024
| title     = University Commas
| image     = university_commas_2x.png
| imagesize = 580x273px
| noexpand  = true
| titletext = The distinctive 'UCLA comma' and 'Michigan comma' are a long string of commas at the start and end of the sentence respectively.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by an OXFORD-TRAINED BOT COMMA - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

The use of commas in the English language is {{w|Comma#Uses in English|famously disputed}}, most relevantly among publishers and academics. This comic imagines that all possible (and impossible) comma positions in an example sentence are associated with different universities. This applies to commas which should ''always'' be present in a list, optional commas elsewhere in the sentence (which have nothing to do with a list, such as after the word "please") and blatantly erroneous commas (which should ''never'' be present in a sentence, e.g. immediately prior to the {{w|full stop}}/period).

The Oxford comma (a.k.a. {{w|Serial comma}} or, despite how this comic represents it, the ''actual'' Harvard comma) is a comma between the penultimate item in a list and its conjunction (typically ''and'' or ''or''), to echo all the commas (at least one) that act as {{w|Comma#List separator and the serial (Oxford) comma|placeholders for the conjunction}} in-between all prior members of the list. For instance, you might write "red, white, and blue" (with the Oxford comma) or "red, white and blue" (without it). Some style guides, such as ''{{w|The Oxford Style Manual}}'' published by {{w|Oxford University Press}}, (unsurprisingly) recommend using it, while other similarly authoritative guides recommend against it. Though even those with either recommendation may suggest its (non-)use in situations where this avoids an ambiguity arising from the normally recommended choice.

One {{w|Serial comma#Ambiguity|common example}} showing the need for an Oxford comma is "To my parents, Ayn Rand''',''' and God". Without the comma (as in: "To my parents, Ayn Rand and God"), it may read that the author's parents are Ayn Rand and God. If such confusion is to be avoided, reordering the list is a common way to avoid ambiguity, for example, "To Ayn Rand, God and my parents" is one such reordering. However, the use of an Oxford comma in this version might imply the deification of Ayn Rand.

Conversely, if the sentence was instead to be "To my mother, Ayn Rand, and God", with such a comma, there arises the possibility of an assertion that one's mother is Ayn Rand, whereas "To my mother, Ayn Rand and God" does not let one fall into that trap.

In the most common interpretation the example sentence reads (with proper punctuation and bracketed Oxford comma): "Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread."

However, most of the commas are possible punctuation marks in a specific pragmatic reading of the sentence:

{| class="wikitable" style="margin:auto"
|-
! Comma name !! Notation !! Explanation
|-
| Harvard comma || Please''',''' buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || emphatic plea, marked by a sub-clause separator
|- 
| Yale comma || Please buy''',''' apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || a merchant's plea to their customer, marked by a sub-clause separator
|-
| Stanford comma || Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || mandatory separator in a list
|-
| Columbia comma || Please buy apples, mac''',''' and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || a plea to buy apples, cheese, milk and bread, directed at a person called Mac, whose name is stylized as "mac"
|-
| Cambridge comma || (Please buy apples, mac, and''',''' cheese '''being unavailable''', milk[,] and bread.) || valid with a qualifying sub-clause; invalid in the example sentence
|-
| Cornell comma || Please buy apples, mac and cheese''',''' milk[,] and bread. || mandatory separator in a list
|-
| Oxford comma || Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk''',''' and bread. || {{w|Oxford comma}} :-)
|-
| Princeton comma || (Please buy apples, mac, and cheese, milk[,] and''',''' bread '''being out of stock, oats'''.) || valid with a qualifying sub-clause; invalid in the example sentence
|-
| MIT comma || (Please, buy, apples, mac, and, cheese, milk, and, bread''','''.) || possible reference to [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11597901/why-are-trailing-commas-allowed-in-a-list trailing commas sometimes used in programming], which would be associated with a university highly specialized in technology
|}

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A sentence is written in greyed-out text, with the commas in black and each labeled with an arrow]
:Please, buy, apples, mac, and, cheese, milk, and, bread,.

:[The labels are as follows, in order:]
:Harvard comma
:Yale comma
:Stanford comma
:Columbia comma
:Cambridge comma
:Cornell comma
:Oxford comma
:Princeton comma
:MIT comma

:[Caption:] The Oxford one is the most famous, but many major universities have their own comma.

==Trivia==
[[Randall]] appears to be a fairly regular user of the Serial/Oxford Comma, himself, with the most recent example being in the title text of [[2985: Craters]]. This is clearly out of habit or preference, as it is not required for clarification purposes. But clearly he also appreciates the conflicting viewpoints inherent to such a style opinion. He later completely avoided the use of list-commas entirely in a (three-part) list within the comic text of the successive [[2986: Every Scientific Field]], possibly for rhetorical reasons.

This very wiki currently reminds anyone editing a page that their contributions "may be edited, altered, or removed", which is also not a syntactical necessity beyond adherence to the Oxford styling. Later, in the same paragraph of text, it also uses structure of "…, or … or …", but for different grammatical reasons that are unrelated to serial/list commas.

{{comic discussion}}