I'm sorry, but I went through 12 years of English classes and was never taught the "Oxford Comma." It was never even mentioned.
We were actively taught that a comma preceding "and" in a list was flat out wrong. Were thirteen English teachers wrong? (Two senior year.)
I didn't even learn about it until the past year or two... and that's saying something.
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I'm sticking to what I was taught and I'm not using it. Seeing it now just looks wrong.
So how would you differentiate my example? The Oxford Comma is so that people don't have to interpret what you're saying; it's to get the language closer to what it literally means so people don't have to spend as much effort reading.
Yes, the intention of the Oxford Comma is to prevent ambiguity in sentance structure, but my research on the matter for this thread indicates that there are similar cases where it's use can also cause ambiguity.
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The suggested solution to eliminate that could also be applied to non use of the OC. It is to ensure that your intent is properly contextualised with not just the punctuation, but also how the sentence is structured.
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I would write your example as:
"I had dinner with JFK, Abraham Lincoln and the strippers.
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If my intention was to indicate that JFK and AL were the strippers, I would write that as:
"I had dinner with the strippers JFK and Abraham Lincoln."
In the example in the original post, the assumption could be contextualised that no one tops their toast with orange juice, making the example almost a straw man. Almost. Maybe there's a few with unusual breakfast habits that includes dunking their toast in their OJ.
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Non OC, I would rewrite the sentence as:
"I had orange juice, eggs and toast."
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I believe it is safe to assume that with most "traditional" breafasts, eggs and toast go "hand in hand," thus any ambiguity about weather it's eggs AND toast or eggs ON toast is almost a moot point.
I had dinner with the strippers, Abe Lincoln and JFK.
We were actively taught that a comma preceding "and" in a list was flat out wrong. Were thirteen English teachers wrong? (Two senior year.)
I didn't even learn about it until the past year or two... and that's saying something.
.
I'm sticking to what I was taught and I'm not using it. Seeing it now just looks wrong.
.
The suggested solution to eliminate that could also be applied to non use of the OC. It is to ensure that your intent is properly contextualised with not just the punctuation, but also how the sentence is structured.
.
I would write your example as:
"I had dinner with JFK, Abraham Lincoln and the strippers.
.
If my intention was to indicate that JFK and AL were the strippers, I would write that as:
"I had dinner with the strippers JFK and Abraham Lincoln."
.
Non OC, I would rewrite the sentence as:
"I had orange juice, eggs and toast."
.
I believe it is safe to assume that with most "traditional" breafasts, eggs and toast go "hand in hand," thus any ambiguity about weather it's eggs AND toast or eggs ON toast is almost a moot point.
They're cruel