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==

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 some<!-- no <space><comma>s given, etc --> improbable) 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 (regardless of whether they have anything 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.

{{w|Macaroni and cheese}} (often shortened to "Mac and cheese" in the US and Canada) should be considered a single item in a list like this. When just two items are joined together, e.g. to name a compound food such as "peanut butter and jelly", "fish and chips" or "steak and eggs", a comma isn't placed before "and". It is in the use of such compounded items, as a singular list item, where some confusion can arise. Alternate forms ("fish'n'chips", "salt-and-pepper", "PB&J") can put emphasis upon the low-level linking of the components, the outer list can be rewritten (e.g. with semicolon separation) or the reader can be left to logically assume where such a commonly encountered pairing is not part of the wider list. A difference in conjunction can also help to clarify, as in "A good choice of breakfast is ham and eggs, sausage and eggs or sausage and beans, but not ham and beans", which is ''unlikely'' to be accidentally misunderstood (including as options such as "sausage + (eggs or additional sausage) + beans" or "sausage + ('non-ham' beans) + further beans").

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<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,</span> buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || Emphatic plea, marked by a sub-clause separator. (Note that "Harvard comma" is already a common synonym for the Oxford comma, in its context.)
{{w|Harvard University}} is one of eight {{w|Ivy League}} universities in the United States.
|- 
| Yale comma || Please buy<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,</span> apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || A merchant's plea to their customer, marked by a sub-clause separator. This makes the sentence a sentence fragment but this is not uncommon in speech. One use of a comma is to indicate a grammatical aside in speech and (optionally) a return from that pause &mdash; as it would here &mdash; though more formal writing would typically used a more specific punctuation mark, such as a colon. The implication may be that the list of items are those for sale or that there is a promotion around those items specifically.
{{w|Yale University}} is one of eight Ivy League universities in the United States.
|-
| Stanford comma || Please buy apples<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,</span> mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread. || Mandatory separator in a list.
{{w|Stanford University}} is one of the prominent universities in the United States. It is located in Silicon Valley, a short distance from the headquarters of {{w|Apple Inc.}} The Stanford comma between "apples" and "mac" is probably necessary there to distinguish discussions of the food products from discussion of the computer products.
|-
| Columbia comma || Please buy apples, mac<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,</span> 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".

Alternatively, a plea to buy apples, a raincoat, cheese, milk[,] and bread. The first 'and' would then be superfluous, but this could reflect the speaker adding the last two items in the moment to an initial request for the first three.

{{w|Columbia University}} is one of eight Ivy League universities in the United States.
|-
| Cambridge comma || (Please buy apples, mac, and<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,</span> cheese <span style="color:grey">being unavailable</span>, milk[,] and bread.) || Valid with a qualifying sub-clause; invalid in the example sentence. Also requires "mac" to be an item of its own, not a part of "mac and cheese".
The {{w|University of Cambridge}} is one of the two eponymous {{w|Oxbridge}} universities in the United Kingdom. Not to be confused with {{w|Cambridge, Massachusetts#Higher education|other establishments}} in (or originally in) Cambridge, Massachusetts.
|-
| Cornell comma || Please buy apples, mac and cheese<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,</span> milk[,] and bread. || Mandatory separator in a list.
{{w|Cornell University}} is one of eight Ivy League universities in the United States. It has {{w|Cornell Dairy|its own dairy farm}}, which is why the Cornell comma is placed between dairy products, "cheese" and "milk".
|-
| Oxford comma || Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,</span> and bread. || The {{w|Oxford comma}}, as discussed above, is a comma often used in lists (with more than two elements) to further separate the last two elements and thus attempt to avoid ambiguity. In this case, it is unlikely that there would be confusion as to how to interpret the given list, with or without this comma.
The {{w|University of Oxford}} is the other eponymous Oxbridge university in the United Kingdom. Not to be confused with {{w|Oxford Brookes University}}, or universities in {{w|Oxford_(disambiguation)#Places|any other Oxford}}.
|-
| Princeton comma || (Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,</span> bread<span style="color:grey"> being out of stock, oats</span>.) || Valid with a qualifying sub-clause; invalid in the example sentence.
{{w|Princeton University}} is one of eight Ivy League universities in the United States.
|-
| MIT comma || (Please, buy, apples, mac, and, cheese, milk, and, bread<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,</span> <span style="color:grey">thank you</span>.) || 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. If each of these words were identifiers, then including all commas would be a valid way to express a list in some languages (though using a period to indicate the end of a list is uncommon). Specifically, MIT is home to the Rust programming language, which uses trailing commas for the last item of a list as a matter of programming style. In some programming languages trailing commas are allowed since a comma denotes a list and a trailing comma is a way to create a Single-Element list. 
The {{w|Massachusetts Institute of Technology}} is one of the prominent universities in the United States.{{citation needed}}
|-
| UCLA comma(s) || (<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,,,</span><span style="color:gray; vertical-align: super">…</span><span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,,,</span>Please buy apples, mac, and, cheese, milk[,] and bread.) || rowspan="2" | '''Title text proposal''', the two establishments being responsible for each set of commas, perhaps in collaboration. Can perhaps relate to rather specific quotation or quote-separation contexts not in common use. Also strangely looks like German quote marks (two commas at the beginning of the quote and two apostrophes at the end) and their LaTeX representation if you are using the babel package.
The {{w|University of California, Los Angeles}} and the {{w|University of Michigan}} are two more well known universities in the United States.{{citation needed}}
|-
| Michigan comma(s) || (Please buy apples, mac, and, cheese, milk[,] and bread.<span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,,,</span><span style="color:gray; vertical-align: super">…</span><span style="color:red; font-weight:bold">,,,</span>)
|}

Depending upon who you talk to, the two establishments referenced by the title text may not be considered quite as prominent or outstanding as the Ivy League universities, or others mentioned here, hence their relegation to title text punchline. But (actual Ivy Leaguers) {{w|Brown University}}, {{w|Dartmouth College}} and the {{w|University of Pennsylvania}} were not referenced at all, for one reason or another; for example, the very idea of a "Brown comma" might more readily resonate with the concept of the {{w|Brown note}}.

==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 from left to right:]
:Harvard comma
:Yale comma
:Stanford comma
:Columbia comma
:Cambridge comma
:Cornell comma
:Oxford comma
:Princeton comma
:MIT comma

:[Caption below the panel:]
: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. Yet it seems he also appreciates the conflicting viewpoints inherent to such a style opinion. He later completely avoided the use of list-commas 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}}

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