Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute (nytimes.com) 331
Daniel VIctor, writing for The New York Times: A class-action lawsuit about overtime pay for truck drivers hinged entirely on a debate that has bitterly divided friends, families and foes: The dreaded -- or totally necessary -- Oxford comma, perhaps the most polarizing of punctuation marks. What ensued in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and in a 29-page court decision handed down on Monday, was an exercise in high-stakes grammar pedantry that could cost a dairy company in Portland, Me., an estimated $10 million. In 2014, three truck drivers sued Oakhurst Dairy, seeking more than four years' worth of overtime pay that they had been denied (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate link from a syndicated partner). Maine law requires workers to be paid 1.5 times their normal rate for each hour worked after 40 hours, but it carves out some exemptions. [...] The debate over commas is often a pretty inconsequential one, but it was anything but for the truck drivers. Note the lack of Oxford comma -- also known as the serial comma -- in the following state law, which says overtime rules do not apply to: "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. Oakhurst Dairy is arguing that "packing for shipment" and "distribution" are two different items in the list. But that's not how the truck drivers are seeing it. They argue that "packing for shipment or distribution" is one item.
missing the point? (Score:3, Insightful)
Looking past the arguments about commas, does anyone one know *why* there is no overtime pay for these specific jobs? How old is the law in question?
Re:missing the point? (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking past the arguments about commas, does anyone one know *why* there is no overtime pay for these specific jobs? How old is the law in question?
I believe the argument is that a lot of the jobs involved with those particular restrictions revolve around seasonal work (fishing season, harvest season, etc). So the jobs entail maybe a month or 2 of heavy hours followed by 10 months of no work at all. Harvest/fishing season work by it's very nature is a very time intensive work when there is work, but most of time there is no work.
Double meanings aren't just for statistics anymore (Score:2)
And you thought statistics was the only thing that could be interpreted "correctly" to argue either side of a debate...
Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
I was thinking the same thing.
On the surface, I understand why. You can't just leave some milk or fish out in the warehouse just because your shift is done. It has to be moved into a refrigerated area. However, this is not a problem for the hourly worker to resolve. Somewhere the process is broken. Either they are asking too much of the workers or just plain old failing to plan adequately for demand. Either way, they should pay the overtime. Maybe if they had to pay overtime, the added costs would force them to revise the processes involved so that OT is not required.
I like the old saying, "Lack of planning on your part does not create an emergency on my part." So the workers are due the OT pay or the planners need to eliminate the OT requirement.
Oh, you should always use the Oxford comma. ;-)
Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't just leave some milk or fish out in the warehouse just because your shift is done. It has to be moved into a refrigerated area. However, this is not a problem for the hourly worker to resolve. Somewhere the process is broken.
That system is called "mother nature." These are seasonal jobs, so it's 14+ hours a day for the 3 months or whatever the fish are in season and then nothing for 9 months. If they had to follow the same rules for overtime as a factory where you can just turn off the widget machine at the end of the shift the industry wouldn't exist.
Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure it would. "Seasonal jobs" seems like a pretty flimsy excuse. Just like any job, you hire enough people to adequately cover the work without overtime, or you pay the overtime, employers' choice.
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It's not like they're not getting paid well. It's just a different type of industry for which the standard rules don't work well.
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Though I doubt there are truck drivers that only carry fish. That's not a seasonal job even though it probably has various peaks and valleys through the year.
I forgot to add (Score:3)
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I'm not going to look up Maine labor regulations, but in California, an employer can compel an employee to work overtime.
https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FA... [ca.gov] (see #7).
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It seems to me like every hourly employee should be eligible for overtime pay. If you are paid on some other basis, then what constitutes overtime and how it is handled should be specified in the contract of employment. That solves the problem of CEOs getting overtime pay, and solves the problem of hourly employees not getting it. A lot of people will want their jobs to shift from a salaried to hourly model, and if their current employer doesn't want to make that happen, hopefully they can find one who can.
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It seems worse than that. Blue collar jobs have a metric assload of harsh rules that regulate everything and make it sound more like a prison sentence than a job.
But you walk into even the lowest end white collar job, the rules are in some dusty HR handbook that nobody gives a shit about.
It's not ambiguous at all (Score:3, Insightful)
I see no ambiguity here. Of course, I also write parsers.
packing for shipment or distribution of X
=> packing for (shipment or distirbution) of X
NOT
=> packing for shipment of X, distribution of X
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Re:It's not ambiguous at all (Score:5, Insightful)
The law uses both terms, the difference is meaningful or they would be redundant. "Distribution" in law isn't just "driving things to the places to which they are distributed." The term also covers any change of hands - many drug laws prohibit "distribution," to cover exchanges with or without remuneration.
The law covers agricultural products. Those sold at a farm stand are being distributed (sold), but not shipped (they're sold at the site of origination). Those being trucked from a plant to the same company's warehouse are being shipped, but not distributed. And, packaging may differ for distribution (e.g. retail packaging) and shipping (e.g. case packs, palletizing). So, packaging for (distribution or shipping) is a perfectly logical clause, as they can be completely different things.
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So if shipping is part of distribution (we'll call them collectively shipubution for clarity), what would packing for shipubution be? That's correct, a specific step that is not being included in shipubution. So the packing is exempt, the shipubution is not.
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So if shipping is part of distribution (we'll call them collectively shipubution for clarity), what would packing for shipubution be? That's correct, a specific step that is not being included in shipubution. So the packing is exempt, the shipubution is not.
What? The entire sentence is providing a list of the activities that are exempt. The don't list the activity of distributing the products as an exemption from the exemptions. Are you even listening to yourself?
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So then why didn't it read "... ,packing, shipping or distribution" assuming they didn't use the Oxford comma?
Of course, the Judge didn't need to prove a particular version of the law in this case, he only needed to rule that there is an ambiguity of some kind. Based on the comments here, I'd say there is.
The legislature could have removed that ambiguity either through an Oxford comma or by rephrasing the whole thing.
It is a useful comma and should be retained (Score:5, Informative)
Efforts to drop the comma originated with newspapers in a time when space on the printed page mattered. word groupings are always clear with it, and may, or may not, be clear without it.
It should be preserved in formal writing.
As the sentence is written in the article, the drivers won the case because the written sentence says exactly what they interpret it to say. The dairy company is on the wrong side of the language.
A comma after the word 'shipment' and before the word 'or' would have made the company the winner.
Re:It is a useful comma and should be retained (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, there's a good argument that the missing comma wasn't an accident.
According to the Quartz article [qz.com] on this, the drivers argued (correctly, in my view) that all the other items in the list were -ing gerunds, e.g. "storing, marketing, packing, ...", and that therefore "distribution" belongs to the pair of "shipment or distribution", and not to the longer list.
In other words, had the intent been to exempt that last item, it would have been written "...marketing, packing for shipment or distributing" with or without the comma.
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Let's work with the inverse. Let's assume the last two are a combined in a pair:
"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."
If shipment or distribution were to be considered one item then the sentence is gramatically incorrect and should instead read:
"The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, or packing for shipment or distr
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I've always been a fan of the Oxford comma myself, even as an American writer. But every time I use it in my writing, inevitably I get pushback from my boss or editors that this is not correct grammar (it is). It's also a pet-peeve that my editors give me shit every time I start a sentence with a conjunction, which contrary to what your dumbass high school English teacher taught you, is perfectly grammatically acceptable. And my editors' high school English teachers can go fuck themselves.
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I was taught to use the Oxford comma in high school in the American southeast. Apparently, there is disagreement even within the U.S.
Re:It is a useful comma and should be retained (Score:5, Funny)
I, was taught, to use, the Shatner Comma.
Oakhurst Dairy is correct (Score:2, Insightful)
The dairy is correct.
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.
If "packing for shipment or distribution" was one item, then there would be another "or" before "packing":
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, or packing for shipment or distribution of: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods.
Because that "or" isn't there, the "or" before "distribution" makes "distribution" the final item in the list:
1. canning
2. preserving
3. freezing
4. drying
5. marketing
6. storing
7. packing for shipment
8. distribution
The meaning is plain and the court really needs to go back to elementary English class if they ruled otherwise.
Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct (Score:4, Insightful)
I understand 8 as "packing for distribution".
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I read it as 'and (packing for shipping or distribution)'. Because there's no oxford comma.
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I think that's how most people would read it, but if people would just be taught the Oxford comma, things would be much more consistent.
I know my kids were taught NOT to use the Oxford comma, and were downgraded on it from their middle school teachers when I'd been their editor. That teacher did NOT expect, nor welcome, pushback on such an issue; she'd presented it as "obviously nobody uses that anymore, just like the two spaces after a period thing".
Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct (Score:5, Informative)
I don't believe it's that simple. Consider the following example I just found:
"I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty."
That sentence could be interpreted either as you love your parents AND Lady Gaga AND Humpty Dumpty. It could also be interpreted as you love your parents, and your parents are named Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty. There is a degree of ambiguity there.
Now consider this sentence:
"I love my parents, Lady Gaga, and Humpty Dumpty."
There is no ambiguity there. Clearly the speaker is listing three separate entities.
The judge did not rule on the meaning of the sentence. Instead, he ruled on whether the sentence is ambiguous. I think most people would agree the sentence has at least a degree of ambiguity, and that the presence of an Oxford comma would have removed that ambiguity. I had a better education with regard to grammar than students in most of the schools in my area, and even I am not absolutely sure what is technically correct. I think the judge is saying the truck drivers would not have been able to enter into the contract with full knowledge of its repercussions, but for knowledge of a grammatical technicality.
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I helped my Uncle jack off a horse
Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oakhurst Dairy is not correct (Score:2)
I agree. It seems bizarre to determine a truck driver's eligibility for overtime based on what is hauled in his truck. Would any legislature deliberately create a situation in which a truck driver is _sometimes_ eligible for overtime (hauling Atari "E.T." cartridges to the landfill) and sometimes not (hauling frozen chicken to a warehouse)? What if a trucker performs both activities in the same week?
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.
I think the lack of punctuation explains what the legislature intended. The number of commas determines t
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I don't think that your analysis is correct. It's not so simple.
The first set of items are connected by missing "and" terms, not or terms:: ... and preparing for shipment or delivery of ....". Looked at like this, the "or" stands alone.
"The canning, and processing, and preserving,
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Reality, it's not about the comma. Shipping and distribution are the exact same thing to anyone who's actually worked a logistical position.
This is a matter of Maine not having the education (along with the truck drivers whom are suing Maine,) this is a matter of idiots not knowing that two different words are one and the exact same thing.
Since 'packing for shipping or distribution' implies ONE activity (packing) meant to go along with another activity (shipping/distribution) the truck drivers are in the ri
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The law doesn't really care about grammar though. I think it's likely that the court will find that the person writing the law probably meant "packing for shipment or distribution" because the preceding word is also "or". If they had intended otherwise they would have omitted the first "or".
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Be Consistent (Score:5, Insightful)
While the second half of the statement uses semicolons instead of commas, they clearly use the oxford comma version of grammar rules. Therefore you must assume the first half of the sentence is also using the same rules, so the truckers are right.
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But note that the second half uses "and" to separate the items, not "or".
So, I would argue that the first part is not missing an oxford comma, but instead is missing an "and", so you get:
"... storing, and packing for shipment or distribution"
Seems like it would be worded differently (Score:2)
If the intent was to have "packing for shipment or distribution" as one item it would read "storing, OR packing for shipment or distribution of:"
It's also not clear to me why any of those should be excluded from overtime.
ambiguity (Score:2)
The arguments on both sides of the oxford comma debate are generally around removing ambiguity.
Certainly, in this case, there is ambiguity, and the addition of the comma would remove that ambiguity immediately.
I think there are some cases where the addition of the comma can cause ambiguity, but there are an awful lot more cases where it removes it.
So the case has to revolve around the ambiguity caused by the lack of the comma, and to whom this ambiguity benefits.
(I'm on the side of the drivers! Oxford Comma
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Then they should have rewritten the sentence so that there was no chance of ambiguity.
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But what would we discuss then? Where's the fun in that?
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
They are few, but they exist.
It's happened before (Score:4, Funny)
Video of writing the law (Score:2)
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$10M, huh? (Score:2)
That dairy can't be too big. (What in Maine is?)
Just like Cal Berkeley yanked all 10,000 educational videos over a lawsuit, I wouldn't be surprised if the dairy says, "fuck you" and declares Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
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Cal Berkeley yanked those educational videos because they were sued under the ADA to provide close-captioning and such for the hearing impaired.
Which would have been extremely expensive (think of 10k lectures as ~50 years worth of primetime network TV), to say the least.
So they looked the situation over, figured out that they'd have to spend tens of millions of dollars to continue offering those free videos (with an ever-present ri
Grammar Nazis, Unite! (Score:5, Funny)
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I have to agree. It's not tech, but it sure is News for Nerds. Great pick.
First part of sentence should have been a list (Score:2)
Time to introduce lists into the drafting of laws (Score:2)
Given that this is a tech site, I think a lot of us would recognize the ambiguity in this sentence as a problem with design of the language. In this case, it is the way legal documents are written. As an earlier comment pointed out, Maine's own legislative manual says not to use the Oxford comma.
The solution to this ambiguity is to introduce other language constructs into the so called "legalease". This really should be analysed and corrected for future laws.
One suggestion is that they could introduce bu
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And that's exactly how every law I've read around here looks. usually in a case like this, the sentence in the law would simply refer you to an appendix with a list of excluded tasks/professions, and that appendix would be a bulleted or numbered list.
The right to bear arms shall not be infringed (Score:3)
Politicians suck at writing clear, concise sentences.
Executable (Score:3)
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I will often throw brackets into sentences to make things clearer. That would absolutely have resolved the issue in TFA.
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I do the same thing with parenthesis. I would write a 4 sentence comment on a site, and it may have as many as 6 sets of parenthesis.
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Bracket is a generic term that includes the more specific term 'parenthesis'. And braces and chevrons (though I've never used chevrons and didn't even know that was an option until I looked it up just now).
Of course, it ALSO means 'square bracket' if you're American and 'parenthesis' if you're not, so perhaps I should have been more specific as a non-American on what is likely an American-dominated site.
Sooo........ (Score:2)
Associativity of OR: (Score:2)
A or B or C or D is the same as A or B or (C or D)
The whole list is a disjunction, and either the last item is (X or Y), a disjunction of two items, or X or Y are elements of the list.
Unless they are trying to argue that "A and B and (C or D)" is meant - given context, that is insane.
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Vampire Weekend (Score:2)
Who gives a f*...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Disambiguation (Score:2)
Are the terms defined?
Is there a distinction between "packing" and "distribution" of the 3 classes of items?
If they mean the same thing, then you couldn't argue that it means "packing for shipment or packing for distribution of: ..."
In that case, when you accept that the 2 actions are equivalent, i.e. A === B, you'd be saying "packing for A or packing for A", which is clearly redundant.
It doesn't matter (Score:2)
(1) Just because of all this debate, it is "reasonable" to believe that there is ambiguity in the contract.
(2) If there is ambiguity in the contract, the judgement is always for the plaintiff.
Done.
Truckers are right, and here's why (Score:4, Insightful)
Since there is ambiguity, look at the language used to form the list:
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, stoing, packing for shipment or distribution of
This is a list of verb forms (present participles) and so "shipment or distribution" (nouns) is a qualifier for "packing" and not additions to the list themselves. So from the context, or pattern, the "or" binds more tightly with the modifiers and not with the list. If the list was intended to include "distributing" or "shipping" it would have added the words in that form.
Dreaded? (Score:2)
>"The dreaded -- or totally necessary -- Oxford comma, perhaps the most polarizing of punctuation marks"
Properly called the "serial comma."
Why is the serial comma ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] ) dreaded? This is what I was taught as proper writing in a very good school system in the 80's. It is also what I use today. To me it seems logical, functional, lessens ambiguity, and makes common sense. (Note the use of it in that last sentence).
An old example, but worth it. (Score:4, Informative)
I've always used the Oxford comma ever since I read this sentence:
"I'd like to thank my parents, God and Ayn Rand."
Much different meaning than
"I'd like to thank my parents, God, and Ayn Rand."
Re:clearly the truckers are right (Score:5, Informative)
The State of Maine states that the Oxford comma should *never* be used in Maine legislation. This means the second(last) item after a comma in a list should be considered a separate item, based on the legislative drafting manual. I don't see how the court could ignore this.
https://www.maine.gov/legis/ro... [maine.gov]
"A. Series. 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.
Do not write:
Trailers, semitrailers, and pole trailers
Write:
Trailers, semitrailers and pole trailers
Be careful if an item in the series is modified. For example:
Trailers, semitrailers and pole trailers of 3,000 pounds gross weight or less
are exempt from the licensing provisions.
Does the 3,000-pound limit apply to trailers and semitrailers or only to pole trailers? If the
limit is not intended to apply to trailers and semitrailers, the provision should read:
Pole trailers of 3,000 pounds gross weight or less, trailers and semitrailers
are exempt from the licensing provisions.
If the limit is intended to apply to all three, the provision should read:
If a trailer, semitrailer or pole trailer has a gross weight of 3,000 pounds or
less, it is not required to be licensed."
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The problem here is that this is a company document, not Maine Legislation. So he coding style likely doesn't apply.
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Comprehension fail.
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Just like the phrase "of 3,000 pounds gross weight or less" could be modifying one or multiple things, the phrase "for shipment or distribution" could be referring to one or multiple things. It was well within the legislature's power to follow the manual and write it as:
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My reading of those instructions are that you shouldn't use an Oxford comma in Maine law (fine) but if you find yourself in a situation where the meaning is ambiguous then you should rewrite the sentence to be clear. Which would leave the interpretation of the law as written in the favour of the truckers.
Your reading is wrong. Because we're not robots. (Score:3)
The law is not a program, human beings aren't computers. English is not a programming language.
Human languages have some ambiguity and laws cannot anticipate every scenario, but that's totally okay because (a) humans [as opposed to computers] are spectacularly equipped to solve fuzzy logic problems, and (b) our legal system has a robust framework for handling these ambiguities.
It's desirable to remove ambiguity in the law where reasonable because it is more efficient than going through the court system--but
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I don't think they did ignore it. The fact that the Oxford comma is banned doesn't change the fact that the clause in question is ambiguously written. Had the law been written with bullet points, for example, the ambiguity would be resolved. But absent that, the court had to look at other clues in the text. What the defendants argued was that the other exempted activities were all in gerund form, whereas it uses "distribution" instead of "distributing". Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that "distr
Re:clearly the truckers are right (Score:5, Funny)
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The Oxford comma IS a good idea. It's less ambiguous. The problem is that in recent years, people have gotten lazy and leave it out to save a single keystroke.
Less ambiguity is a good thing.
Re:clearly the truckers are right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:clearly the truckers are right (Score:4, Informative)
It's clearly not because they're a single item, or the previous item in the list would have had "or" instead of a comma.
If the intent had been that this was one item, the law would have said "The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing or packing for shipment or distribution of: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods."
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Alternately (as the court found), one could plausibly interpret that because the other exempted activities are all in gerund form, while using "distribution" instead of "distributing", that it is reasonable to assume that "distribution" modifies "packing" in the same was that "shipment" does, rather than being a separate item.
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Clearly no one involved knows what the intent was. Did the judge ask the person who wrote the law? If not, the judge can't possibly know either.
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It seems to me by the guidelines they should have moved "packing for shipping" to the end of the list then.
"The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, distribution or packing for shipment of: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods."
Since they didn't, "packing for" must refer to both shipping and distribution.
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Except that now we have "-ing" words in a sequence with a "-tion" word, and that has to be considered. There's two different grammatical indicators pointing in two different ways. The law is ambiguous.
Re:clearly the truckers are right (Score:4, Insightful)
i think this just shows why laws shouldn't be written in English. Laws should have their own syntax including special delimiters to clarify items in a list. It should be designed sort of like a programming language.
comas clearly aren't sufficient.
Commas are sufficient, but the lack of an Oxford comma should always been seen as grammatically incorrect, and whomever wrote the Maine law needs to not be able to write laws concerning grammar anymore.
Re:clearly the truckers are right (Score:4, Informative)
First of all, I'll agree with you.
However, at the very least, this could have been easily solved by using a bulleted list instead of writing it out in a sentence. Non-standard syntax is not necessary in this particular case.
Second, law-making bodies (and the general public, as they ought to be able to access the law conveniently too) need better software tools for dealing with legislation. For example, they need better version-control -- I'm involved with local government, and getting a diff-like representation of the proposed changes to a law is way more of a pain in the ass than it should be. Another issue is that laws are structured like computer code, with external references, but there needs to be a better way to "inline" the other clauses being referenced so that it's easier to see the whole law without having to jump around and reference multiple sources. Finally, lawmakers need to be introduced to the concepts of "refactoring," "technical debt" and "removing unused code."
Re:clearly the truckers are right (Score:4, Insightful)
Much as I want to side with the truckers on this one, no they're not right. In American English, it's quite clear that the two items were meant to be separate and no comma is required before the last conjunction.
I personally think it's bullshit that Maine has decided to carve out an exception to overtime laws for one specific interest group (no doubt one that regularly brib....ahem...."donates to the campaigns of" state political officials). I also think such obvious interest-group exceptions should be against Federal law, if it's not already. But hanging their hat on a comma that's not required in American English is a weak-as-fuck way to go about getting the overtime that they really do deserve.
BTW, if they drive any of this dairy out of state, they would fall under Federal trucking regulations, which don't provide for overtime at all (only 10-hour rest breaks for every 11 hours of driving and 70-hour-week limits). That's bullshit too.
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I just wrote some grammars for a language and I might be a bit sensitive to the way it is set up. I agree that the truckers are wrong. Looking at it from a lexical/parser perspective we have the sentence:
The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of:
With the lexical tokens:
The (1 - article) | canning (2 - identifier) | , (3 - separator)| processing (2 - identifier)| , (3 - separator) | , freezing (2) |, (3) | drying (2) | , (3) | marketi
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I don't need to ask the writer because the meaning is perfectly clear to anyone not being willfully obtuse.
Re: clearly the truckers are right (Score:3)
The sentence is ungrammatical otherwise. It says "A, B, C or D". If we assume "C or D" is meant as one item in they list, there is a missing conjunction ("and" or "or", in this case) before it. The only reasonable way to read it is that C and D are separate items.
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Having worked in this industry (specifically shipping food goods) shipment and distribution are one and the same thing. Learn 2 Logistics, Maine. Better yet, Maine needs to go the fuck back to school and remember what the definitions of those two words are.
Re:Lacking Lingual Ability (Score:4, Interesting)
No, they're not. Trucking goods from a manufacturer's plant to their own warehouse is shipping, but not distribution in a legal sense. Distribution occurs when there's a change of hands. At a roadside farm stand, there's distribution, but no shipping.
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Not only is there ambiguity, but as shipment and distribution are similar and related ideas, it is quite likely that a reasonable person would tend to resolve the ambiguity as "The packing for (shipment or distribution) of..." by assuming that "shipment or distribution" describes the general category of moving product.
Since there is clear ambiguity in this contract, and a reasonable person could come to the same conclusion that the truckers did, by the doctrine of Contra proferentem [wikipedia.org] said truckers most certa
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The grammar in question is part of state law, not a contract, and contra proferentem only appears to apply to contracts. Even if it was applied to laws, the state isn't a party to the lawsuit and therefore can't "lose" the case.