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Serial Comma -- Writing and Punctuation
Do you remember the recent contract case that was decided by the placement of a comma? In its Q&A section, the Chicago Manual of Style addressed the placement of a comma in another contract, a store’s return policy.
The policy provided that the store would “refund the purchase price of any previewed, defective or mislabeled products returned within 30 days, provided you have the original receipt.” The store claimed that “since the serial comma is not employed, ‘previewed’ becomes a stipulation of both ‘defective’ and ‘mislabeled.’” For that reason, the purchaser’s new (not previewed) product was not covered by the policy.
This is how the Chicago Manual of Style responded:
A. Chalk one up for Chicago’s promotion of the serial comma! Although you must consult an attorney in order to learn the legal import of the phrasing in question, one can’t help but ask: if the retailers think that “any previewed, defective or mislabeled products” is equivalent to “any previewed defective or previewed mislabeled products,” would they also agree that “any mushroom, pepperoni or sausage pizza” is equivalent to “any mushroom sausage pizza or pepperoni sausage pizza”? The retailers’ omission of commas in their interpretation (“previewed defective or previewed mislabeled”) is tantamount to admitting that the sentence was unclear as written. Finally, even if the retailers’ punctuation logic were technically correct (which it isn’t), they would be using the letter of the law to evade its spirit.
I generally do not like the serial comma, but this example shows that it certainly can be significant.
