{"id":1317978,"date":"2020-01-29T21:48:00","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T04:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/purcell-column-claritys-cost-the-5-million-comma\/"},"modified":"2020-01-29T21:48:00","modified_gmt":"2020-01-30T04:48:00","slug":"purcell-column-claritys-cost-the-5-million-comma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/purcell-column-claritys-cost-the-5-million-comma\/","title":{"rendered":"Purcell column: Clarity\u2019s cost: The $5 million comma"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Clarity is in short supply across America, but no longer at dairy farms in Maine.<\/p>\n

In 2014, you see, drivers for a dairy company in Portland, Maine sued their employer for overtime pay because a state law pertaining to overtime-pay exemptions failed to include the Oxford comma.<\/p>\n

What is the Oxford comma?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the final comma in a list of things, Grammarly explains. In Grammarly\u2019s example, the Oxford comma appears after the word \u201ceraser\u201d: \u201cPlease bring me a pencil, eraser, and notebook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Few use the Oxford comma anymore. Most newspapers, for instance, edit articles according to the Associated Press Stylebook, which does NOT use the Oxford comma.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the big deal? According to some pedantic humorists, proper Oxford-comma use is a huge issue, one that could even save lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s shop, then eat, Grandma\u201d suggests something much less harmful than \u201cLet\u2019s shop, then eat Grandma!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s camp, and hunt, Tom\u201d is much less menacing than \u201cLet\u2019s camp, and hunt Tom!\u201d<\/p>\n

And \u201cI love cooking my dogs and my family\u201d is much more appalling than \u201cI love cooking, my dogs, and my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which brings us back to that overtime pay dispute.<\/p>\n

According to The New York Times, \u201cMaine law requires time-and-a-half pay for each hour worked after 40 hours, but it carved out exemptions for:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:<\/p>\n

\u201c(1) Agricultural produce;<\/p>\n

\u201c(2) Meat and fish products; and<\/p>\n

(3) Perishable foods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dispute concerned the words \u201cor distribution of.\u201d The Times reports that since there was no Oxford comma before \u201cor\u201d the \u201ccourt ruled that it was not clear whether the law exempted the distribution of the three categories that followed, or if it exempted packing for the shipment or distribution of them. Had there been a comma after \u2018shipment,\u2019 the meaning would have been clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Had there been an Oxford comma, \u201cdistribution of the dairy goods\u201d would have clearly been exempt from overtime pay, but it wasn\u2019t clear.<\/p>\n

Thus, the dairy company had to cough up $5 million in overtime pay that it wouldn\u2019t have had to pay had an Oxford comma been properly used.<\/p>\n

In any event, this story illustrates the importance of clarity in our laws and government processes. If ambiguity in a state law can cost one company $5 million, what might Americans\u2019 increasingly unclear understanding of our government and political landscape be costing us?<\/p>\n

Here are some disturbing findings from Annenberg Institute surveys:<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than half of Americans (53%) incorrectly think it is accurate to say that immigrants who are here illegally do not have any rights under the U.S. Constitution;<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than a third of those surveyed (37%) can\u2019t name any of the rights guaranteed under the First Amendment;<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly 39% can name all three branches of government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ignorance is dangerous to a representative republic. Voters must be well-informed to prevent smooth-talking, self-serving charlatans from attaining and abusing political power.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s worse is that social media platforms enable widespread sharing of misinformation. Too many social media users enthusiastically share unvetted \u201cfacts\u201d with likeminded friends at the expense of truth and clarity.<\/p>\n

The solution to our increasing lack of clarity? Here are two options, one with a comma, one without:<\/p>\n

\u201cWake up, America!\u201d \u2013 or \u201cWake up America!\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Purcell is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review humor columnist. Send comments to Tom at Tom@TomPurcell.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clarity is in short supply across America, but no longer at dairy farms in Maine. In 2014, you see, drivers for a dairy company in Portland, Maine sued their employer for overtime pay because a state law pertaining to overtime-pay exemptions failed to include the Oxford comma. What is the Oxford comma? It\u2019s the final […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 03:15:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}