{"id":188300,"date":"2010-10-24T18:38:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T23:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/10\/24\/the-final-serial-comma-is-still-a-necessity\/"},"modified":"2010-10-24T18:38:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-24T23:38:00","slug":"the-final-serial-comma-is-still-a-necessity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2010\/10\/24\/the-final-serial-comma-is-still-a-necessity\/","title":{"rendered":"The Final Serial Comma Is Still a Necessity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You kow what the final serial comma is, don&#8217;t you?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s the last comma used on a list, so you see, &#8220;Item1, Item2, Item3, Item4, Item5<span style=\"font-weight: bold;\"><ins>,<\/ins><\/span> and Item6.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some people believe that this is an anachronism that can be discarded, and that, &#8220;Item1, Item2, Item3, Item4, Item5 and Item6,&#8221;  is acceptable.<\/p>\n<p>Well, <a href=\"http:\/\/nielsenhayden.com\/makinglight\/archives\/012652.html\">Patrick Nielsen Hayden believes that this shortcut is in error, and I agree<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/i.imgur.com\/U2Fg6Ii.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With the final serial comma, it is clear that Merle Haggard&#8217;s ex-wives, as well as Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall were interviewed.<\/p>\n<p>Without the final serial comma it is clear that Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall are Merle Haggard&#8217;s two ex wives.<\/p>\n<p>To quote Emo Phillips, &#8220;Ambiguity, the Devil&#8217;s Vollyball.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You kow what the final serial comma is, don&#8217;t you? It&#8217;s the last comma used on a list, so you see, &#8220;Item1, Item2, Item3, Item4, Item5, and Item6.&#8221; Some people believe that this is an anachronism that can be discarded, and that, &#8220;Item1, Item2, Item3, Item4, Item5 and Item6,&#8221; is acceptable. Well, Patrick Nielsen Hayden &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[962,1100,1130,1137,1015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-40yrs","category-funny","category-language","category-music","category-weird"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}