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from the I'll-take-'Grammar-Nazi'-for-$10,000,000-Alex-... dept.
A company that refused to pay its delivery drivers overtime for years has lost its bid to be a cheapskate, to the tune of $10,000,000. The 1st US Circuit Court of Appeals (decision-pdf) interpreted an exception to OT laws with special care to a meaningful but missing comma. Specifically, the phrase existing in the statute is:
"..., packing for shipment or distribution of:"
The company wanted the phrase to be interpreted as:
"..., packing for shipment, or distribution of:"
Without the comma, the activity excluded from coverage is "packing". With the comma present, it would have excluded packing or distribution.
The law as it exists in all its commaless glory:
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Saturday March 18 2017, @02:05PM (27 children)
I've read about this on a couple of different sites. The most amusing thing is this: In the sentence given, commenters vehemently protest that there is no ambiguity. They are split about 50/50 on which way is the only possible way to interpret the sentence. The fact that other people are just as convinced of the alternate interpretation is lost on them: Yes, this sentence really is ambiguous.
The fact is that the Oxford comma exists precisely for situations like this. If it is used consistently, then the absence of a comma makes it clear that the final two items are both modified by "packing for" - they are a sublist within the larger list.
What makes this particular example even more problematic:
- The government's writing guidelines apparently explicitly state that the Oxford comma shall not be used.
- On the other hand, the second half of this very sentence uses the Oxford comma (ok, it's a semicolon) - note that there is a semicolon before the "and" separating items 2 and 3 in the list.
Based on that last (the Oxford-semicolon) in the very same sentence, it seems entirely likely that the author used Oxford commas despite the state guidelines. Which would in turn mean that the absence of a comma between "shipment or distribution" is intentional, because they belong together. Meaning that the truckers were correct in their interpretation.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday March 18 2017, @02:30PM (1 child)
However, the ME guidelines also say to use the comma to avoid confusion when there is a modifier:
From the decision, p15: http://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca1/16-1901/16-1901-2017-03-13.pdf [justia.com]
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday March 18 2017, @02:33PM
lousy copying from the PDF -- missed a part. The quote should read:
But the drivers point out that the drafting manual is not dogmatic on that point. The manual also contains a proviso -- "Be careful if an item in the series is modified" -- and then sets out several examples of how lists with modified or otherwise complex terms should be written to avoid the ambiguity that a missing serial comma would otherwise create.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @02:33PM (3 children)
On the other hand, the second half of this very sentence uses the Oxford comma (ok, it's a semicolon) - note that there is a semicolon before the "and" separating items 2 and 3 in the list.
A semicolon is not a comma. A semicolon is a semicolon.
Oxford commas are overrated: http://www.businessinsider.com/do-you-need-the-oxford-comma-2013-9?IR=T&r=US&IR=T [businessinsider.com]
The fanboys on both sides are idiots since both methods can create ambiguity. One is not significantly better than the other.
Non-Oxford comma creating ambiguity:
We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin."
"We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin."
Oxford comma creating ambiguity:
"We invited the stripper, JFK, and Stalin."
"We invited the stripper, JFK and Stalin."
That's why sane programming languages use stuff like parentheses and other methods to reduce the ambiguity.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:43PM (1 child)
I fail to see the ambiguity in the 2nd example, unless the stripper is named "JFK and Stalin".
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @06:55PM
I think he's suggesting that "the stripper, JFK, and Stalin" could be read with JFK as a parenthetical, as "the stripper (JFK) and Stalin"; technically true, but you didn't see the ambiguity, and I had to hunt for it, because that isn't how any sane person would write it. We have three commonly used parenthetical delimiters, and even though the main function is to distinguish how directly related the parenthetical is, you obviously don't pick the one that will create ambiguity.
The whole problem with the Oxford comma is not the technical ambiguity either with or without, but that we can't implicitly resolve the ambiguity with "but nobody would" arguments. The possibility of a "comma-delimited parenthetical in a comma-separated list" construction technically creates ambiguity, but is not a problem because we don't have a significant fraction of writers who would ever write that way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @06:08PM
We invited the stripper, JFK, and Stalin.
That's just lousy sentence construction.
"As well as" is useful in sentences.
Not enough people use it.
...and a historic critique of the example:
Stalin died in 1953 at age 74.
At the time, JFK was a 35 year old 4th-term congressman.
It's unlikely there was ever a circumstance where they would have crossed paths, much less, interacted.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 18 2017, @02:44PM (10 children)
- On the other hand, the second half of this very sentence uses the Oxford comma (ok, it's a semicolon) - note that there is a semicolon before the "and" separating items 2 and 3 in the list.
That's part of the drafting rules as well.
Outlining sections. If you use an introductory expression that ends with a colon to lead into subordinate clauses or other text, make certain that each clause reads as a logical and grammatical continuation of the introductory language. In addition, begin each item with an upper- case letter, use a conjunction after the next to the last item, end each item except the last with a semicolon and end the last item with a period.
meanwhile the relevant part on items in an in-sentence list/series says:
Although authorities on punctuation may differ, when drafting Maine law or rules, don’t use a comma between the penultimate and the last item of a series.
The quoted section on overtime law is grammatically correct as per the drafting manual [maine.gov] for Maine legislation.
In the sentence given, commenters vehemently protest that there is no ambiguity. They are split about 50/50 on which way is the only possible way to interpret the sentence. The fact that other people are just as convinced of the alternate interpretation is lost on them: Yes, this sentence really is ambiguous.
Sorry, that just means half are wrong. Maine legislation doesn't use Oxford commas in in-sentence lists. According to the judges' ruling, there were two other lists in that section of law which also lacked the Oxford comma as one would expect.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday March 18 2017, @02:53PM (9 children)
You missed this part:
1) Drafting rules are not laws and have exceptions.
2) There is zero doubt the phrase can be read two ways. You admit this, but strongly favor one reading. Your preference is irrelevant - the law is ambiguous because there are two readings.
3) When the law is ambiguous, the court will look at the purpose of the statute in question:
4) Court found that Drivers' narrow reading furthered the purpose of the statute more than Employers' broad reading.
The decision is solid. You disagree with it, and surely the employer will now hire more comma-adept legislators to fuck the workers harder, but for now, suck it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 18 2017, @03:34PM (8 children)
You missed this part:
But the drivers point out that the drafting manual is not dogmatic on that point. The manual also contains a proviso -- "Be careful if an item in the series is modified" -- and then sets out several examples of how lists with modified or otherwise complex terms should be written to avoid the ambiguity that a missing serial comma would otherwise create.
The proviso doesn't apply here. It's circular reasoning at its finest. Just because the writer of this particular clause might not have been as "careful" as the manual would like (which let us note isn't an actual error of any kind), doesn't mean that one gets to reinterpret the list willy nilly.
2) There is zero doubt the phrase can be read two ways. You admit this, but strongly favor one reading. Your preference is irrelevant - the law is ambiguous because there are two readings.
The phrase can be read in many ways more than just two. But only one way is the right way.
In order for the second interpretation to be right, there has to be two errors: dropping the conjunction before "packing" and adding the comma before "packing". And at that point, when you are allowing interpretations based on two or more errors, you will get more than two possible interpretations.
4) Court found that Drivers' narrow reading furthered the purpose of the statute more than Employers' broad reading.
Another nasty bit of rationalizing.
The decision is solid. You disagree with it, and surely the employer will now hire more comma-adept legislators to fuck the workers harder, but for now, suck it.
Nonsense. I disagree because the ruling is shit. English is a hard language in the first place to write law in. But when parties willfully ignore actual meaning and grammar, it makes the problem impossible. You can't have rule of law when judges interpret writing as they wish.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:55PM (3 children)
For your interpretation to be correct, there also has to be two errors, because the items should be joined by "and" not "or", as they are in the second part of the statement.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 18 2017, @06:15PM (2 children)
For your interpretation to be correct, there also has to be two errors, because the items should be joined by "and" not "or", as they are in the second part of the statement.
What are you trying to say? The construction looks good to me. Further, "or" is a standard conjunction used just like "and" in these series lists.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Saturday March 18 2017, @07:29PM (1 child)
Even if you don't accept my argument about "and", the judges make an interesting point.
If "distribution" is meant to be an item in its own right, to be consistent with the rest of the sentence, it should be "distributing": "packing for shipment or distributing".
Instead, "distribution" matches "shipment", suggesting that "packing for shipment or distribution" should be read as one item in the list and "distribution" is not a separate item.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:27AM
Instead, "distribution" matches "shipment", suggesting that "packing for shipment or distribution" should be read as one item in the list and "distribution" is not a separate item.
Distributing also matches all the words ending in the -ing suffix since it too is a noun. It is invalid to assume the sentence is in error due to such a superficial consideration. We need to remember that legislation is typically edited by multiple parties and they need not adhere to artistic style.
Let us keep in mind that there is one interpretation of the sentence which is grammatically correct and a bunch of interpretations which aren't. This ruling reeks of judicial activism since it inserts judicial interpretation into what was a decided case and flips the previous rulings on the basis of a suspicious reinterpretation of grammar to an erroneous one.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 18 2017, @06:06PM (1 child)
Nonsense. I disagree because the ruling is shit. English is a hard language in the first place to write law in. But when parties willfully ignore actual meaning and grammar, it makes the problem impossible. You can't have rule of law when judges interpret writing as they wish.
Fuckin' A, right, Khallow!
Those librul assholes need a lesson to be taught, preferably with a baseball bat or a Nitro Express!
Failing that, since the real 'murikkkans are in charge now, we should just blow up the Library of Congress and be rid of every last one of those job-killing regulations once and for all!
The job creators are being strangled by lubrul judges and rafts of useless regulations. We just need to get rid of the evil [wikipedia.org] pinko [wikipedia.org] fuckhead [wikipedia.org] laws that keep us from Making 'Murikkka Great Again™!
Once we've put that right, we can get rid of the spics, the niggers, the jews and especially those terr'ist raghead sand niggers!
Then we make sure the rest of those waste of breath poor people know their place!
Amirite? You know I am!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 18 2017, @06:18PM
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:22PM (1 child)
If it can be read many ways, it is ambiguous. That is what ambiguous means. The rest is argument, not fact.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:23PM
If it can be read many ways, it is ambiguous.
Again, that is a circular argument. You can choose to read it a different way, by making unwarranted assumptions about errors of grammar and such. And when you do choose to read it in an ambiguous way, it turns out to be ambiguous.
We've seen the outcome of such games before (a well-known example being the Second Amendment of the US Constitution which has a phrase that is popularly misinterpreted). The judge interprets the law as they see fit, invariably in accordance with their biases. The whole point of written law is to prevent people, including judges, from making up rules on the fly.
The start of any interpretation of a statute or legislation should be the actual writing. Here, the Maine legislature uses a particular grammar for in-sentence series/lists. The sentence is without error when one considers that standard and the normal interpretation (which had already passed two previous rulings). When one ambiguously interprets the sentence in any other way, it is in error. That demonstrates the ambiguity is imaginary. Just because you can choose to read the sentence in some non-standard way doesn't make that way legally valid.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday March 18 2017, @03:08PM (6 children)
I was having this conversation the other day, and it occurred to me that it's actually fairly rare that the oxford comma or it's absence should create ambiguity.
Consider - in the vast majority of cases a serial list must be linked with either "and" or "or" in order to indicate whether it's inclusive or selective list.
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, or distribution of
Means something fundamentally different than
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment, and distribution of
The latter indicates all must apply, while the former indicates any one of them is sufficient.
That being the case, if there is only one "and" or "or", it must be interpreted to indicate the kind of list intended, unless context already makes it clear. i.e. if the previous line had been something along the lines of
This will apply to any of:
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:39PM (5 children)
That argument was addressed in the opinion. TLDR, the text is ambiguous because it can be read more than one way, and thus, the court must resort to examining the underlying purpose of the statute (preventing workers from getting screwed on wages). Here's the long way:
Parallel Usage:
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 19 2017, @03:30PM (4 children)
Thus, the drivers' reading of the text is hardly fully satisfying.
In other words, the reading is wrong. The judge admits that there's no evidence of the supposed alternate interpretation and decides it's "ambiguous" anyway. I'm not surprised that someone who throws a judgment to favor one side uses ridiculous euphemisms.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday March 19 2017, @05:16PM (3 children)
And you again ignore that Oakhurst's reading is also unsatisfying (parallel construction). That leaves us with an ambiguous phrase.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday March 19 2017, @06:52PM (2 children)
And you again ignore that Oakhurst's reading is also unsatisfying (parallel construction).
Parallel construction here is a red herring. The Maine Legislative Drafting Manual is a standard for Maine legislative writing. E. B. White advice is not. And once again, let us note that the alternate interpretation requires us to assume that the sentence has a couple of significant grammatical errors, while mixing gerunds and regular nouns (the basis of the parallel construction argument) is not an error. It's merely poor style.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday March 20 2017, @02:44AM (1 child)
And so then is the issue with being stingy with "and/or" which brings us back to, you guessed it, ambiguity. You're just too hard headed to actually see there is an alternative.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday March 20 2017, @03:28AM
You're just too hard headed to actually see there is an alternative.
I don't disagree that there are plenty of alternatives. It's like a parody of Cardinal Richelieu's saying about six lines by the most honest man. Any legal writing can be interpreted however you want, if you ignore the actual writing.
The judge who wrote this opinion had to strain mightily to come up with a rationalization for inserting "ambiguity" into his ruling (beyond that of the plaintiffs), but once he did, it was a simple matter to decide things the way he wanted to. And what's worst of all is that even if the ruling is completely reversed, there will be no consequence to him for this game. We should be very leery of people in power who ignore how law is written in order to get their way.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Saturday March 18 2017, @03:24PM
Let me suggest an overlooked part of this argument.
In the second part of the sentence, the items are joined by "and". In the first part of the sentence, "and" would be appropriate to join the items in the list.
Now put one or more "and"s into the first part of the sentence, obviously not replacing the "or". What you get is a sentence that clearly supports the definition that benefits the truckers.
(Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Saturday March 18 2017, @05:22PM (1 child)
If the "packaging for" is the last item in the list, then it itself should be preceded by "and" or "or". As it's not, it is _not_ the last item in the list. There _is_ a last item in the list, then, and that item is "distribution". As that's the last item, it's separate from "packaging for shipment".
This seems obvious, as you said. If the law-writers did not intend this meaning, they they wrote the sentence incorrectly. In this case, the oxford comma may serve as a "parity bit", but it's not required and there is only one interpretation of this sentence. You would never say, "I'm going to store, cook, eat these," as would be the statement if you interpret "or distribution" as associated with "packaging".
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday March 19 2017, @02:41PM
This was directly addressed in the opinion. See: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=18536&page=1&cid=481144#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]