Image courtesy of writer.com
This story might take you back to grammar school.
Some local officials have made use of the “Oxford comma” the law. It seems simple until you consider the “Oxford comma”, which we Americans tend to leave out before the “and” near the end of a list.
In an episode of “The West Wing,” Richard Schiff’s Toby Ziegler asked the National Archives about an inconsistent comma in the Constitution, and the archivist said they couldn’t determine if it was a comma or a smudge. That comma in only about half the reprints and, according to the show, would have changed the meaning of the “Takings Clause”. The following is an excerpt from a posting on typepad.com:
It probably should be the lack of 2 commas surrounding “for public use.” In official versions of the constitution, the Takings Clause reads: “nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” No commas in the original. With the supposed “missing commas” it would read: “nor shall private property be taken, for public use, without just compensation.”
Can we read Prof. Merrill’s argument as saying that since the original does not include the two commas around “for public use” that “for public use” does not constitute a separate constraint on the government’s eminent domain power?
The King County Council takes it so seriously that members proposed an ordinance to put the Oxford, or serial comma in all legislation, which council staffer, Erin Auzins, says would help in three ways. Auzins says, “It would help improve clarity in the intent of the language, it would avoid ambiguity, comma, and it would help us avoid very awkward drafting when we’re listing things in the code.” Auzins says she’s had to rewrite sections of bills to avoid serial commas.
The Council agreed with the reasoning and voted unanimously to approve the ordinance.
