I remember reading a law report of a court case which came to be known as 'The case of the crucial comma ' . It revolved around whether a comma was disjunctive or conjunctive. Powerful things , commas, and not to be entrusted to lay people . See also 'specific' (not 'pacific' ) , 'infer' (when it should be imply' )and the ghastly 'sat ' for 'sitting '.
Re #41, the issue with the Dairy Drivers was that "distribution" was seen as an exclusion by the employer, but without the comma "packing for shipping or distribution" was seen my the employees as "packing for shipping" or "packing for distribution", so it was the act of packing that was excluded, not the act of distribution, which is what the court ruled.
In some of the IT contracts I've worked on, we have explicitly excluded lists using "and" or "or" linking the elements, instead spelling them out only as comma delimited, semi-colon delimited, or bulleted lists.
I've heard the suggestion that legal documents shouldn't include any delimiting punctuation within sentences. The idea was that the absence would avoid ambiguity.
I was once associated with a computer science group that treated legislation as logic programs. That allowed the use of automated tools to find contradictions and inconsistences and illegal (!) values. The test case was the British Nationality Act (1981).
And last week the same issue came up with computable medical guidelines...
JK- when I started in the law the starting point in drafting any documentation was to exclude all punctuation . Even a full stop was a bit edgy. That solved comma and colon issues but produced ghastly documentation. Latterly , things improved and documents became easier to read and understand , with sensible punctuation and even - eek - words like 'We' and 'You ' being used instead of the 'first party ' , 'the licensor' and so on.
But lists are potholes on the road to clarity - you need to make it clear, where intended, if the words are non limiting examples , or exhaustive.
This principle was made flesh in a shop in Lincoln , near where I worked , which had a neatly stencilled sign saying ' No Fish and Chips allowed in this shop' . To which had been added , in an angry scrawl 'Or Food' . Obviously some smartarse had walked in with his reeking pie and curry sauce and , on being challenged , had said 'Doesn't say pies are banned, does it duck? ' .
Occasionally punctuation can mean the difference between life and death.
I once saw the following sign at a popular tourist spot on the bank of the River Nile:
Crocodiles do not swim here
I was with the local police chief at the time and I explained to him that it was most unusual for the river to be safe for swimming.
He looked at me aghast, and explained it was exactly the opposite - crocs were all over the area, and there were fatalities each year with crocs eating swimmers and bathers.
I remember reading a law report of a court case which came to be known as 'The case of the crucial comma ' . It revolved around whether a comma was disjunctive or conjunctive. Powerful things , commas, and not to be entrusted to lay people . See also 'specific' (not 'pacific' ) , 'infer' (when it should be imply' )and the ghastly 'sat ' for 'sitting '.
Re #41, the issue with the Dairy Drivers was that "distribution" was seen as an exclusion by the employer, but without the comma "packing for shipping or distribution" was seen my the employees as "packing for shipping" or "packing for distribution", so it was the act of packing that was excluded, not the act of distribution, which is what the court ruled.
In some of the IT contracts I've worked on, we have explicitly excluded lists using "and" or "or" linking the elements, instead spelling them out only as comma delimited, semi-colon delimited, or bulleted lists.
James
I've heard the suggestion that legal documents shouldn't include any delimiting punctuation within sentences. The idea was that the absence would avoid ambiguity.
I was once associated with a computer science group that treated legislation as logic programs. That allowed the use of automated tools to find contradictions and inconsistences and illegal (!) values. The test case was the British Nationality Act (1981).
And last week the same issue came up with computable medical guidelines...
Jonathan
JK- when I started in the law the starting point in drafting any documentation was to exclude all punctuation . Even a full stop was a bit edgy. That solved comma and colon issues but produced ghastly documentation. Latterly , things improved and documents became easier to read and understand , with sensible punctuation and even - eek - words like 'We' and 'You ' being used instead of the 'first party ' , 'the licensor' and so on.
But lists are potholes on the road to clarity - you need to make it clear, where intended, if the words are non limiting examples , or exhaustive.
This principle was made flesh in a shop in Lincoln , near where I worked , which had a neatly stencilled sign saying ' No Fish and Chips allowed in this shop' . To which had been added , in an angry scrawl 'Or Food' . Obviously some smartarse had walked in with his reeking pie and curry sauce and , on being challenged , had said 'Doesn't say pies are banned, does it duck? ' .
"Even a full stop was a bit edgy."
: - )
...
Old programmers' motto:
Leave it to me
I'll use a tree.
But if you insist
I'll use a list.
Jonathan
Occasionally punctuation can mean the difference between life and death.
I once saw the following sign at a popular tourist spot on the bank of the River Nile:
Crocodiles do not swim here
I was with the local police chief at the time and I explained to him that it was most unusual for the river to be safe for swimming.
He looked at me aghast, and explained it was exactly the opposite - crocs were all over the area, and there were fatalities each year with crocs eating swimmers and bathers.
It appears the sign was later changed to say:
Crocodiles - Do not swim here
Talking of lack of punctuation...
"There's that marvellous unpunctuated motto over the lavatory saying, "Gentlemen lift the seat". What exactly does this mean? Is it a sociological description — a definition of a gentleman which I can either take or leave? Or perhaps it's a Loyal Toast?"
(Age-wise, it terrifies me to say it, but I actually saw BTF, live, in the West End.)
JV
"I once saw the following sign at a popular tourist spot on the bank of the River Nile:
"Crocodiles do not swim here"
Sounds like an allegory!
; - )
Jonathan
Mrs Malaprop lives!