Comma Facts

Facts related to "Comma"

The lack of an Oxford comma in the wording of a state law laying out what activities qualify a worker for overtime pay, more than 120 drivers for the Oakhurst Dairy became eligible for a multi-million settlement for unpaid overtime. npr.org/sections/thetwo-w…
The lack of an Oxford comma cost a Maine dairy company $5m usatoday.com/story/money/…
The lack of an Oxford Comma in Maine state law cost Oakhurst Dairy $10 million in overtime pay for its drivers. thewritelife.com/is-the-o…
An Ohio woman once got out of a parking ticket because of a missing comma in the state's laws. She successfully argued that her car wasn't a "motor vehicle camper" and therefore wasn't included in the list of prohibited vehicles. cbsnews.com/news/missing-…
A dairy company in Maine had to pay $5 million dollars in overtime pay to their drivers due to the lack of an Oxford comma in a state law nytimes.com/2018/02/09/us…
The Johannine comma is text added onto the end of John 5:7-8 in the Bible and it was most likely forged as it is not found in any of the earliest manuscripts or writings. It is also the only verse explicitly describing the Holy Trinity. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joh…
The song Paint It Black by the Rolling Stones was initially released as "Paint It, Black" due to a clerical error. It has since been re-released with the comma removed but Spotify still displays it. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pai…
A company in Maine was sued for $10 million because they did not use an Oxford Comma in their workers’ contracts nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us…
(the lack of) an oxford comma cost a dairy company $5 million. usatoday.com/story/money/…
A Portland dairy was forced to pay staff over $10 million in back pay because of a missing Oxford comma in the state overtime laws. cnbc.com/2017/03/16/lack-…
A customer was gifted overgenerous contract terms due to a misplaced comma in a contract with aerospace giant Lockheed Martin. The erroneous comma radically altered the inflation-adjustment formula resulting in $70 million loss to Lockheed Martin. money.cnn.com/1999/06/18/…
Commas can cost a lot. A dairy company in the US city of Portland, Maine settled a court case for $5m in 2018 because of a missing comma. bbc.com/worklife/article/…
Christopher Walken's speaking style goes back to childhood, when he changed punctuation in his textbooks with a marker to be where he *wanted* the periods, commas, and exclamation points to be. celebratingchristopherwal…
In 2017, a dairy company in Maine lost a lawsuit about overtime pay due to the absence of the Oxford comma. theguardian.com/books/201…
Some countries use a decimal point instead of commas for numbers above a thousand. Ex. 100.000 ( 100,000 ) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dec…
The Finnish word 'pilkunnussija', literally translated as "comma fucker", is a person who corrects grammar at the peril of there own social standing. Your welcome. en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pi…
The story "Comma Gets a Cure" is a passage that allows researchers to examine a reader's English pronunciation across a wide variety of phonemic contexts and identifies dialects, accents when read aloud dialectsarchive.com/comma…
A million dollar telecom legal battle hinged upon a single comma in the contract nytimes.com/2006/10/25/bu…
Gentlemen should rest merry - not merry gentlemen should rest. There's a comma you don't sing in the Christmas carol "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" historyextra.com/feature/…
An Oxford comma (or lack thereof) cost a Maine dairy company $10,000,000 thewritelife.com/is-the-o…
What an oxford comma is.

An oxford comma is the comma right before the and in a series.

I have 100 pounds of iron, 50 pounds of steel, and coal. I have 100 pounds of iron, 50 pounds of steel and coal.

In the first example, the amound of coal is not specified, while in the second example there are clearly 50 pounds of coal. By omitting the oxford comma, you can let people think that you have 50 pounds of coal, even if you do not, as the oxford comma is often viewed as optional.

But why would you lie about how much coal you have? why would you lie about something dumb like that?

Source

Most other languages do NOT use the serial (or Oxford) comma, and it is only mandatory in a handful of British and American style guides. It is frowned upon by most journalists. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ser…
More countries use a comma than a dot as a decimal point. (e.g. 0,01 rather than 0.01) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dec…
Commas were originally invented by the ancient Greeks in order to show actors where to pause and breathe grammarly.com/blog/2013/h…
If you don't use commas or periods when you address your mail, it may arrive at its destination more quickly people.howstuffworks.com/…
South Africa, unlike any other part of the English-speaking world, uses the comma, not the period, as the decimal mark. sadev.co.za/content/how-c…
The Rolling Stones' record company mistakenly included a comma in the title for their single Paint It Black (Paint It, Black), leading to a controversy over its racial interpretation. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pai…
The Times's description of a Peter Ustinov documentary stated "highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector". This quote is used to support use of the serial (Oxford) comma. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ser…
In India long numbers are separated by a comma after the first three and every TWO digits thereafter: so "10 million" would be written as 1,00,00,000 ("1 karoαΉ›"). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ind…
Languages that have a simple word for 10,000 (and not a composite like 'ten-thousand') often don't separate every three digits with a comma or period, but every 2-3 digits. 1,000,000 would be 100,0000 in China or 10,00,000 in India [Indian languages also have a word for a hundred thousand]. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dec…
The Australian Style Guide Opposes the Mandatory Use of the Oxford Comma. australia.gov.au/about-go…
In a list using a comma before "and" is called the oxford comma grammar-monster.com/lesso…
You're not supposed to put a comma between the city and the state when addressing mail. pe.usps.com/text/dmm100/a…
Approximately 24% of the world uses a comma as their decimal mark. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dec…
Mark Cuban co-founded a three-comma-themed apparel company that was inspired by the fact that there are three commas in a billion. threecommas.com/pages/abo…
The Oxford comma can create ambiguity when the middle element of the list could be mistaken for an appositive, as in "We invited the stripper, JFK, and Stalin." businessinsider.com/do-yo…
[] Richard Feynman last words were "This dying is boring" as he pulled his life support and re-entered comma, then died. friesian.com/feynman.htm
The Finnish word for "pedant" or "person who corrects little or meaningless things" translates literally to "comma fucker" betterthanenglish.com/pil…
The international standard for the decimal separator is the comma en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dec…
The US Army designed a medal as a result of a typo. A radio operator thought that the word "CMA", the abbreviation for a comma, was to be a new award for Burmese guerillas who helped the Allies in WWII (which the government hastily minted to avoid embarrassment). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSS…
In 1872 by transposing one comma, the US government cost the country $2 Million ($38 Million in today's dollars) by accidentally exempting fruit, specifically oranges and lemons from an import tax. inquisitr.com/1539208/beh…
Someone wrote a song about the Oxford Comma en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxf…
The National Weather Service (USA) weather bulletins have odd formatting such as all capital letters and ellipses instead of commas because they still use a teletype compatible format. slate.com/articles/health…
The song 'Oxford Comma' has many references to Lil Jon. As thanks, Lil Jon sent Vampire Weekend a case of crunk juice. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxf…
Lark Voorhies (aka Lisa Turtle from Saved by the Bell) wrote a book called "True Light". Every chapter is entitled "Light" (except the first which is "The Light") and every word is followed by a comma. books.google.ca/books/abo…
A misplaced comma once cost the US $1 million in lost tariffs snopes.com/legal/comma.as…
The editors of Webster’s Third saved eighty pages by cutting down on commas. newyorker.com/magazine/20…
The US style rule of always putting commas and periods inside quotation marks was instituted only for aesthetic rather than grammatical reasons slate.com/articles/life/t…

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