Lack of Oxford Comma Could Cost Maine Company Millions in Overtime Dispute (nytimes.com)

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.

Comments

clearly the truckers are right

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see how one can infer a comma where one doesn't exist. its pretty clear. you cant just edit a law that you don't like.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[thebigmacd]

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...

"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."

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Desler]

Unless the lack of a comma is because it is a single item. You can't just assume they are seperate.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Tomahawk]

The problem here is that this is a company document, not Maine Legislation. So he coding style likely doesn't apply.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[beelsebob]

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."

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[elrous0]

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.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Grishnakh]

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

[Desler]

So you wrote this law and know exactly what the intent was?

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Desler]

Quite clear how? Did you ask the person who wrote it?

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[meta-monkey]

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.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[elrous0]

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

[flopsquad]

I think this manual would be Exhibit A supporting the truckers. Abstracting the rule from the example: "If your list includes a prepositional phrase that could be construed ambiguously, draft the list so it's no longer ambiguous."

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:
"The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, packing for shipment or distribution, marketing or storing of:"

That's much clearer**, and it doesn't even break up the logical flow of "things you do to move food through the supply chain." Even better, just say "...packing, shipping, distribution..."

**Though even this construction leaves a possible mini-list interpretation at the end. This is but one example of why I always include the fucking Universal Grammatical Separator whenever I need to, you know, grammatically separate things. #oxfordorgtfo

tl;dr: The instruction to omit the Oxford comma is inseparable from the instruction to rewrite the list if such omission leaves it ambiguous.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[ceoyoyo]

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.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's not. The question is does the legislation exempt drivers from overtime requirements

Re: clearly the truckers are right

[Anonymous Coward]

You want lawyers mixed with programmers? Oh god, the humanity!!

Re: clearly the truckers are right

[Entrope]

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.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[thebigmacd]

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.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Durrik]

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) | marketing (2) | , (3) | storing (2) | , (3) | packing for shipment (2) | or (4 - operator) | distribution of (2)

In English this would be a logical list. And that is usually set up as:

logicalList : identifierList OR_OPERATOR identifier
                              | identifierList AND_OPERATOR identifier
                              ;

identifierList : identifier
                                    | identifierList COMMA identifier
                                    ;

Long story short the OR in the wording above is the operator to tell the parser (human), what type of list it is. In this case the OR operator indicates that the list is one of the items in the list. If the last identifier was 'packing for shipment or distribution of' then there is no way to say what type of list it is.

I also think this bullshit that people can get forced to work unpaid overtime. That includes C level executives. If you're going to work the hours you should be paid for it. The only time I would disagree with this is if you signed a very specific contract that says 'I will get X, Y and Z done by T and I will be paid $ for the work' that was properly negotiated then I can see overtime needing to uncompensated. But that's for very specific mostly deterministic tasks. Driving a truck to make deliveries doesn't fall under this, there's too many uncontrolled variables (Traffic, people receiving being slow, etc).

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Anonymous Coward]

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 "distribution" modifies "packing" in the same was that "shipment" does, rather than being a separate item.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Known Nutter]

The problem here is that this is a company document, not Maine Legislation. So he coding style likely doesn't apply.

Comprehension fail.

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.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Oxygen99]

This post is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[bilbodh]

Skip the comma altogether and use a numbered list. Eliminates the ambiguity entirely then.

Re: clearly the truckers are right

[Comboman]

SYNTAX ERROR: No closing parenthesis found.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[david_thornley]

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

[Rakarra]

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

[Rakarra]

Let x equal true if
(
A
And
B
And
(C or D)

But you can't make that distinction. The problem is without the Oxford comma,
A and B and (C or D)
A and B and C and D
Two separate things, but they would be written exactly the same. That's why the Oxford comma should be mandatory in such lists.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[msauve]

If the law was intended to treat shipping and transportation as the same thing, then the law could have been written both unambiguously and with no Oxford comma:

...storing, packing for shipment or shipment of...

If shipment and distribution are two different things, it's hard to believe the law was written to have a different effect on "packing for shipment" (covered by the law) and "packing for distribution" (not covered) or between "shipment" (not covered) and "distribution" (covered).

"...packing for (shipment or distribution)..." is the only logical reading.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[LoyalOpposition]

It's not necessary to know with 100% certainty. A lot of legislators who voted for the law can't possibly know what the intent of the writer was, but presumably they know with sufficient surety to vote for the law. It's not a huge stretch to conclude that people under the law can know enough to obey it, and so can the judge. Obviously, there are exceptions where the law is overly confusing, and thus cannot be obeyed, but that's not the proper conclusion to draw for the vast majority of laws.

~Loyal

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[mrchaotica]

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

[thegarbz]

No, he read the law using the manual that was provided for writing laws in that state. If the intent was anything different than the writer of the law fucked up.

What the intent was is actually completely irrelevant in any law. The courts do not decide on intent.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[gnasher719]

This post is dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

You might want to express that the post is dedicated to (1) mum, (2) dad, (3) Ayn Rand, (4) God. Or you might want to express that you are the result of sex between Ayn Rand and God. The sentence as written could express both. So clearly you must use two changed sentences to express the two different statements without ambiguity.

If you wanted to express the first statement, you could do that in very slightly bad English but unambiguous with a tiny little change by writing "my parents, Ayn Rand, and God". If you wanted to express the second statement in a different way, a bigger change would be needed, like "Ayn Rand and God, my parents" or "Ayn Rand and God, who are my parents".

But since the change for the first meaning would have been much smaller, that change would have been made if you wanted the first meaning.

Drivers win. An additional comma "packing for shipment, or distribution", would have meant they lose.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[AK Marc]

Diff doesn't work. Sometimes a new law is explicitly a diff. "Repeal The Idiot Act of 1822 and add "new text" in the place in the criminal code, 4.2 (1)A(2)(c). The law is a diff. Other times it's "define green in this section to include all blue and yellow that isn't pure, and any reds that can be confused with green to anyone with colorblindness." The words are new (a simple diff), but can modify lots of things in that section, making a "legal diff" difficult.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[AK Marc]

If your parents are Ayn Rand and God, where's the issue? You'd have used both Oxford comma, and non-Oxford comma rules at the same time.

Re: clearly the truckers are right

[AK Marc]

The Oxford comma is irrelevant. There are an infinite number of ways to write that law to be unambiguously interpreted without the use of an Oxford comma. Yes, if the Oxford comma were standard, there'd be fewer ways to make it ambiguous, but that's not the point you asserted. "You can't make that distinction [] without the Oxford comma []." Which is 100% false, and provably so read any of the piles of comments elsewhere on this article that demonstrate how, for a small selection of options).

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[demonlapin]

In an era in which type was set by hand for printing, eliminating the Oxford comma made great sense for printers - they needed fewer commas on hand, and it did save a fair bit of time. In an era in which typesetting is computerized, that no longer applies, and using it is more akin to the British than the American style of punctuation inside/outside quotation marks.

Amusing way of phrasing yourself, though.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Anonymous Coward]

That should be "whoever" not "whomever".

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Martin Blank]

What the intent was is actually completely irrelevant in any law. The courts do not decide on intent.

That's not always the case. Where the law has a clear and obvious meaning, legislative intent does not enter into the discussion. However, when there is ambiguity, courts may turn to legislative intent to get an idea of what the law should mean. In Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 723 (2000), the majority (six justices) opinion and one of two concurring opinions held that because a plain reading of the law resulted in an absurdity, the intent of Congress in passing the law must be examined. Thomas concurred in the result but disagreed with the need to use legislative intent, and Scalia disagreed with using legislative intent and with the Court's choice of definitions.

This has become less common in the last few decades, as discussed in this William and Mary Law Review article but it's still around at various levels. In general, the more conservative the judge or justice, the less likely they are to rely on legislative intent, while more liberal judges and justices are more likely to rely on it. However, use of it has decreased across the spectrum.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Swave An deBwoner]

Whatever.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[dryeo]

Look again and consider how the Constitution has been interpreted, especially the Bill of Rights. Start with the 1st amendment which clearly says that "Congress will make no laws" about speech and how the courts say, actually they meant no laws about political speech. Congress making laws that throw people in jail for speaking secrets is fine as they obviously didn't mean "no laws". Move on to the 2nd, which is also really clear, "The people have the right to bear arms" becomes, "Honest sane god fearing white Americans have the right to bear arms", because that is what the founders really meant. The there is the Interstate commerce clause.
There is actual need for it in common law, laws are often too general and left to the courts to figure out and laws often conflict and are left to the courts to figure out. Common law actually gives the judiciary a lot of law making powers (look at contract law sometime), even if so many people think it should work like a civil law jurisdiction.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[arglebargle_xiv]

Personally I think the Oxford comma is a good idea. However, if that's what the coding style says, then that's the coding style one uses for Maine law.

Personally I think it's all a commanist plot!

Re: clearly the truckers are right

[Entrope]

Without the Oxford comma, there is still the difference of "and" vs "or" in your two examples.

The Oxford comma is needed to disambiguate short lists like "the hookers, J. Edgar Hoover and JFK". That ambiguity goes away once the list has more than three elements.

"I had lunch with the bookies, the hookers, Hoover and JFK."
"I had lunch with the bookies and the hookers and Hoover and JFK."

Neither is ambiguous at all, and neither is the Maine law that started this all.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Grishnakh]

Well aside from government policies banning its use in government law texts, it's not banned per se, it's just that certain journalism style guides disallow it. But other style guides recommend/require it. Oxford, Harbrace, and many others are in favor, others (mostly British) are not. It looks like it's mainly a way to save a little space because space is valuable on printed newspapers, but that's a pretty silly reason these days, and also doesn't apply to non-newspapers. There's no reason to worry about saving a tiny iota of space on a government law text; Maine is just stupid for adopting this.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[mrchaotica]

Sometimes a new law is explicitly a diff. "Repeal The Idiot Act of 1822 and add "new text" in the place in the criminal code, 4.2 (1)A(2)(c). The law is a diff.

That's exactly the sort of cruft I'm complaining about. Making a law like that is *fundamentally stupid* because it leaves the entire history of the law embedded in the code so that you have to step through all the changes just to figure out what the *current* law is.

Instead, laws should be repealed by *actually deleting the old law* and keeping track of the history separately. (I mean, I realize you need to be able to look up historical laws in order to, for example, understand cases that were prosecuted under the old version... but that doesn't mean you need to clutter up the current version by keeping it all mixed together!)

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[cthulhu11]

This.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[AK Marc]

The registers, physical and online, record both. This is important because someone could get accused of a crime when it was a crime, before the law changed. So the history must be preserved for the law to work.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[mrchaotica]

First of all, I acknowledged that the history must be preserved. Re-read the second paragraph of my previous post. What I'm saying is that you if you want to know what the law is on any given date -- whether that date is today or sometime in the past -- it should be written/stored/organized in such a way that you can retrieve it and just read the thing from beginning to end without having to cross-reference other documents or piece together stuff like "subsection X is hereby repealed and replaced with language Y." Instead, it should just replace subsection X with language Y and not tell you about it. (If you want to know about that, you can use the version control system to figure out how it changed, who changed it, when, why, etc. -- but that's a *different* kind of operation than retrieving a copy to read.)

Second, I would *hope* that if an act were legalized before the case had a chance to get to trial, that the prosecutor would have enough common decency to drop the case. That's probably asking too much, though...

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[michael_wojcik]

Indeed. And it should be "seen as improper usage", not "seen as grammatically incorrect". Application of the serial comma is a matter of usage and mechanics, not grammar.

And it should be either "should always be seen", or "has always been seen". No idea which the OP meant.

Of course, even with those changes it's still wrong. While I for one have always been an advocate of the serial comma, for the usual reasons of clarity and consistency, and for better mimesis of typical speech patterns, I'm fully aware that it has long been controversial even among experts. And given the lack of a generally-recognized authority for English usage, prescriptivists don't have any real ground to stand on.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[michael_wojcik]

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.

Impressively wrong-headed.

Would you care to cite the methodologically-sound, comprehensive research on the (non-)use of the serial comma in "American English" (a collection of a huge number of dialects) and the unambiguous interpretation of its absence by various readers thereof? I'm sure we'd be interested to see it.

Since the phrase is, under any rational analysis, de facto ambiguous - normal English usage allows either interpretation - your claim that "it's quite clear" one interpretation is obviously intended requires rather extraordinary evidence in its support.

(Since this is a question of interpreting a statute, we can overlook the intentional fallacy in this case, at least for the moment. There's a secondary issue of whether the members of the legislature who voted for the law all shared the same interpretation; but your marvelous sweeping generalization would cover that as well. A handy thing, this proof-by-fiat you're using.)

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[michael_wojcik]

I just wrote some grammars for a language...

The Poe's Law is strong with this one.

As satire, though, I think it's too subtle; it misses the mark. If you're serious, then please forget this line of argument unless and until you're a practicing linguist at the height of structuralism in the early 20th century. Actually, don't even bother with it then.

Re:clearly the truckers are right

[Zeroko]

But (as has been pointed out below) the semicolon before "and" later on is an instance of the Oxford comma, which suggests whoever wrote that sentence may have intended to use it, regardless of whether the manual says they were supposed to.

missing the point?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

[Nidi62]

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.

Re:missing the point?

[magarity]

OK, that's true for fishing and crops but the employer in question is a dairy. Are those not fairly steady the entire year?

Re:missing the point?

[David_Hart]

OK, that's true for fishing and crops but the employer in question is a dairy. Are those not fairly steady the entire year?

Perhaps, but the law was written to be relatively generic about each of the industries that it covers so that the law makers wouldn't have to maintain a huge list of specific businesses that falls under it or which should be excluded. In other words, the law is necessarily expansive to allow for new businesses in these industries that could fall under the law in the future. Otherwise, laws would have to be re-written every time a new instance arises that wasn't accounted for.

Re:missing the point?

[magarity]

As illustrated by the dairy operation vs the fishing operation disparity I think the main problem is having a collection of misc exemptions in the first place. Either hourly employees get overtime pay after so many hours or they don't.

Double meanings aren't just for statistics anymore

[Dissenter]

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

[rsilvergun]

have exceptions for overtime pay? Overtime pay exceptions were supposed to be for high paying desk jobs like CEO where it wasn't worth anyone's time/effort to calculate it. Jesus, just repel it entirely already and stop pretending. Or better yet, recognize that any law exempting people from OT will be written from the ground up with abuse in mind and not pass them.

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

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

[drinkypoo]

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. Or, we can specify who has to be paid hourly, and who you can pay on a salary or contract basis.

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[meta-monkey]

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

[ceoyoyo]

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.

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[meta-monkey]

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.

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[sjames]

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.

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[Known Nutter]

You can't just leave some milk or fish out in the warehouse just because your shift is done.

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... (see #7).

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[swb]

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.

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[Khashishi]

I may not be an expert in orbital mechanics, but I think seasons can be reasonably predicted.

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[meta-monkey]

The daily catch, not so much.

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[lgw]

The standard rules work just fine. Why would you say otherwise? Pay the hourly rate that, when obeying standard overtime rules, is the compensation the job needs in order to find workers.

Re:Why the heck do all those blue collar jobs

[Solandri]

It's prohibitively expensive to bring the fish processing factory ship back to dock just to change shift workers, and making the ship large enough for three shifts to live aboard when off shift would triple the cost. So there are outside factors which make it difficult for the employer to just hire more employees as you suggest.

Also, the overtime in these cases is frequently exempted because it typically represents time the employee is "at work" but not doing anything work-related. e.g. the exemption for fishing deckhands exists because they spend a portion of their "work day" sitting around while the boat is in transit.

It's not ambiguous at all

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[ScentCone]

You're exactly wrong. Shipment IS part of distribution. Distribution is the act of distributing, not packing. You know, like driving things to the places to which they are distributed.

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[msauve]

"Shipment IS part of distribution"

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.

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[sjames]

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.

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[ScentCone]

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?

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[sjames]

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.

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[ScentCone]

The legislature probably didn't think a reasonable person would be confused about the fact that prepping shipments and actually handling distribution are two separate things, so they didn't get too worried about the punctuation (though they should have, because some lawyer is looking for a way to make a bunch of cash off of the difference in the punctuation, never mind the obvious intent).

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[computerchimp]

You missed at least one option, the options the drivers argued.

(packing for shipping) or (packing for distribution)

Clearly the drivers do not pack.

The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment [right here is where the employer needed a comma to win] or distribution

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[unrtst]

This is the actual quote:

The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of ___

Personally, I read that differently than I do:

The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, packing for shipment or distribution, marketing or storing of ___

I parse the first to read:

(canning or processing or preserving or freezing or drying or marketing or storing or packing for shipment or distribution) of ___

... or, more explicitly:

(canning or processing or preserving or freezing or drying or marketing or storing or (packing for shipment) or distribution) of ___

IMO, the "or" is ambiguous because it is implied on every comma.

Further, I believe they are actually using an oxford comma in the law but neglected to include the additional "or". I think they are arguing that it should have read as either:
Oxford comma:

The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, or packing for shipment or distribution of ___

According to Maine law, per thebigmacd above, there should not be a comma between the the penultimate and the last item of a series, so it should have been written:

The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing or packing for shipment or distribution of ___

The way they wrote it is neither of those, so it means, "...,marketing, storing, packing for shipment, or distribution of ___"

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[sl3xd]

I'll use food manufacturing plant I worked at as an illustration:

1. A production department produced the item - measuring, slicing, dicing, baking, mixing, frying, what have you. Production happens on-site.
2. Packaging involves portioning and sealing the item into a container, putting those containers into boxes, and palletizing the boxes so forklifts can move them about. Packaging happens on-site.
3. Distribution happens almost exclusively in a warehouse: taking product from the packagers, and dumping production lots in a warehouse. Then they picking individual boxes of products from one pallet and re-palletizing many different products into into individual orders for shipment. Distribution happens on-site.
4. Shipment is where they take a warehoused order, load it into a vessel (train, boat, truck, aircraft, etc), moving the vessel, and then unloading the vessel at either another warehouse, or a point of sale. Shipment by definition, touches sites, but is otherwise off-site.

They're utterly distinct, and have well-defined interfaces.

There are two ways to parse it (parenthesis added for clarity - I hope)

1. (Packaging for Shipment) and (Distribution)
2. Packaging (for Shipment or Distribution).

In any event, let's got with the way that the businesses hope to save money:
- "packaging for shipment" is just that - packaging inside a factory.
- "distribution" involves the folks working in a warehouse.

Shipping (and the truckers suing for overtime) on the other hand, have a good argument: shipping is not distribution.

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[computerchimp]

The sentence that was used is bad. It allowed 2 parties to say yes there is a missing comma. They then put their comma in different places.
The judge said OK. You are both right but traditionally the law falls on the side of labor and so it shall this time.

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[ScentCone]

Whether or not shipping is or is part of the distribution process depends a lot on whether the company does its own trucking and related distribution chores, or pays distributors to do that.

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[fustakrakich]

The whole thing is a lawyer's paradise. If you are on the job more than 40 hours a week (should be shortened to 30), regardless what you are doing, you should get overtime pay, comma, or no comma

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[ScentCone]

No, you should get whatever you and the person paying agree should be the compensation - in the form, and on the schedule and terms that you both agree to. It doesn't need to get any more complicated than that. If the contract spells out overtime and and the employee can show breech of that contract, then it's lawyer time. If the contract makes it clear that people like employees doing long-haul trucking aren't paid overtime, then it really should be that simple. If you don't take that into account (as a driver, looking for a job) and negotiate a salary that you feel compensates you for the fact that job is a roller-coaster of no-work-days and long-ass-days, then that's on you.

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[fustakrakich]

Sometimes we need the law to give muscle to our voice.

Re:It's not ambiguous at all

[ScentCone]

Yes, it's called contract law. If the employer or the employee don't do what was agreed to, the courts are there to provide backup muscle for the consequences of breaching that contract. That's different than a law that says those two parties shouldn't be allowed agree on what it means to be a truck driver serving the particular needs of that employer under terms that the driver is ready to agree to and take money for.

It is a useful comma and should be retained

[number6x]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, there's a good argument that the missing comma wasn't an accident.

According to the Quartz article 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.

Re:It is a useful comma and should be retained

[elrous0]

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.

Re:It is a useful comma and should be retained

[sjames]

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

[Archangel Michael]

I, was taught, to use, the Shatner Comma.

Re:It is a useful comma and should be retained

[thegarbz]

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 distribution of: (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods."

Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Trailer Trash]

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

[Stormwatch]

I understand 8 as "packing for distribution".

Re: Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[ScentCone]

Nonsense. In a serial list, the OR ahead of the last item means that you are looking at an entire LIST of "or" items. The lack of the comma doesn't change that. More specifically, shipment IS distribution. You don't do one or the other. You pack for shipment, and THEN YOU DISTRIBUTE. How are you foggy on this?

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[NatasRevol]

I read it as 'and (packing for shipping or distribution)'. Because there's no oxford comma.

Re: Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[91degrees]

Let's say that we modify the law so that distribution, or packing for distribution are not covered.

"[Overtime does not apply to] The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment of [the listed items]

Is that a gramatically correct sentence? The last comma in the list should be replaced with "and" or "or" for it to be valid English.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[argStyopa]

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

[pr0t0]

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.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Arnold Reinhold]

The activities "canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, or packing" are all activities that take place in a food processing plant. The work in such plants is often seasonal, with long hours for a short period when the harvest comes in, and so exempting such work from overtime pay makes some sense. Truckers, on the other hand typically have work year round so there is no obvious reason to exempt them from the general rule of overtime pay just based on what type of cargo they happen to be carrying. If the legislature's intent was to exempt truckers, it would likely have done so more clearly. Reading such an exemption into a law because of ambiguous punctuation would be improper.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[whoever57]

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::
"The canning, and processing, and preserving, ... and preparing for shipment or delivery of ....". Looked at like this, the "or" stands alone.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Khyber]

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 right, as there's nothing mentioned about overtime exemptions for actual drivers, the packing for shipping or distribution happens IN THE WAREHOUSE, when the truck drivers aren't working.

Re: Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[pem]

Um, yeah, but there are two "or" words there. If the last "or" ends the list, then what is the first "or" there for? That seems grammatically worse than a missing comma.

Re: Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[pem]

Never mind. Ignore me. Misread earlier post; saw two "ors" -- apparently wasn't actual law as written. Carry on.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[AmiMoJo]

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".

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Gogogoch]

Seven verbs and then one noun. I'm not sure about that. The construction: "verb, verb, verb preposition noun or noun" helps to show that the nouns are qualifiers to the last verb, and not in the list themselves.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[thomn8r]

I helped my Uncle, Jack, off a horse

I helped my Uncle jack off a horse

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[phantomfive]

"I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty."

That's a good example.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Qzukk]

There's an easy way to resolve this:

Do they pay overtime to the people who fill cartons and jugs for sale to individuals, since those people would be packing for distribution, and therefore not exempt from overtime per "their interpretation"?

Re: Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[stdarg]

I think it is grammatically correct to have a list without either "or" or "and." Here are some good examples: http://english.stackexchange.c...

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Archangel Michael]

If the meaning of the sentence is ambiguous, and the judge recognized it as being ambiguous, then the judge shouldn't be able to rule in either direction. That would be completely unfair to the losing party. Which it is. And it wouldn't matter which party actually lost, it is "unfair".

The correct legal path is "how has it been interpreted in the past". Once THAT is established, then the onus is on the ones asking for the court to change the interpretation to make their case. Since it is ambiguous in total, that is an impossible task to reach tort level preponderance of evidence required for change, since historically it has been interpreted in a particular way.

After that, the court could revert the case back to the legislature for clarification by proper change in statute for clarity (and/or change) in rendering of the sentence.

The judge overstepped his authority here. It isn't his/her job to fix bad language in law, it is to apply the law fairly and equitably.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[phantomfive]

I'll be honest I have no idea what you just said. And I read your post three times.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Archangel Michael]

Shipping and distribution have specific legal meanings. A "shop" on site is still "distributing" even when it isn't "shipping". Further, transferring material between two warehouses is "Shipping" without "Distributing". The ONLY time they are applied together is when the "Shipment" is going to someone else's control, and where shipping / distribution terms such as FOB are used to designate when the transfer of ownership takes place. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... for more details on various terms / meanings.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Bob the Super Hamste]

It could also be interpreted as you love your parents, and your parents are named Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty.

And now I'm going to be trying to get the image of that ugly kid out of my head for the rest of the day.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Anubis IV]

I understand 8 as "packing for distribution".

The only way that "packing" can be applied to "distribution" is if we use the "or" to create a compound item. Unfortunately, using it that way doesn't quite do what you think it does. Instead, here's what would happen:

1) Your series would only have 7 items
2) #7 would be "packing for shipment or distribution", not "packing for shipment"
3) We'd be missing an "and" or "or" to denote the final item, so you'd actually need more elements

If they had added an "or" before "packing" (i.e. "..., or packing for shipping or distribution"), you'd be correct. Likewise, if there were another element in the series after "distribution", you'd be correct. As it is, however, the only valid interpretation is that the "or" is separating the final item in the series, "distribution", from the preceding, distinct items.

Of course, had they added an Oxford comma this would have been moot. The fact that legal documents don't use it as a matter of course boggles my mind.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[lgw]

I actually have an uncle named Jack who raised horses. I learned the value of commas early in life.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[lgw]

I don't believe it's that simple. Consider the following example I just found:
"I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty."

The older form of this example was:

  "I want to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God."

Of course, on Slashdot someone will mod me down for just mentioning Ayn Rand. My favorite example is:

"The hunter eats, shoots and leaves."

Just for the humor value. Oh, and it's such a classic example that there's a grammar book named Eats, Shoots & Leaves.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[iisan7]

While these examples are cute, the point above stands. Without the comma it is still clear.
I prefer Oxford commas for style reasons but there is an entirely correct way to write when you are not using them.

"I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty."
"I love my parents, and Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty."
"I love my parents, Lady Gaga, and Humpty Dumpty."

-> If "packing for shipment or distribution" was one item, then there would be another "or" before "packing":
This is absolutely correct and really an underrated comment. The ruling is equivalent to saying, "although you wrote beach and you meant the land near the water, since nobody is a good speller, it is ambiguous with the beech tree, and so there is uncertainty on the part of the reader because they may not know how to spell it, and when they sound it out it's the same."

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[iisan7]

Sorry, formatting.
"I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty." means that they are your parents.
"I love my parents, and Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty." means that they are not, without the Oxford comma.
"I love my parents, Lady Gaga, and Humpty Dumpty." also means that they are not, using the Oxford comma.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[pz]

Nope. If your parents were Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty, then the correct orthography would be:

I love my parents Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty.

But because you added the comma, it becomes a list of four people:

I love my parents, Lady Gaga and Humpty Dumpty.

Personally, I prefer the Oxford comma, as it helps further disambiguate such instances.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[thegarbz]

This would be a serious concern if the items in the list were proper nouns, but they aren't, they are verbs.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Khyber]

Quit citing Wikipedia and go actually work in a logistical operation, like I did at Weber.

The overwhelming majority of shipments are distribution as the product has already been paid for - had it not, it would never leave the manufacturing bay doors in the first place.

That is how logistics works today. Your Wikipedia education is sadly ignorant of actual reality.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Golddess]

What's the difference between "packing for shipment" and "packing for distribution"? Wouldn't they be the same thing?

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Golddess]

I helped my Uncle, Jack, off a horse

Still ambiguous. Did you help him down from a horse, or did you help him kill a horse?

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[sl3xd]

Distribution is legally distinct from shipping, so it's a red herring.

Distribution happens on-site - a warehouse, or a store.

Shipping happens between sites.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[AK Marc]

Why is distribution not distributing? That's the only word in your list that's not a gerund. That inconsistency either means the truckers win because the exception is poorly written and should be struck down until re-written, or that the intention is on the trucker's side. Either way, the win is with the truckers. Given the wording, I go with :
"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"

They wanted to specify packing, to exclude packing for sale, but not packing for movement. But "distribution" and "shipment" are legally exclusive terms, so both must be included for the type of packing intended.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[AK Marc]

We'd be missing an "and" or "or" to denote the final item, so you'd actually need more elements

So:

"The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment of:
(1) Agricultural produce;
(2) Meat and fish products; and
(3) Perishable foods.

Is invalid, according to you? I eliminated the conjugation, and it looks to make sense, other than it's a dependent clause, as it was before, and without context.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Anubis IV]

Yup, that's invalid due to the lack of "or" before "packing". Consider these simplified versions:

Overtime rules do not apply to the canning, freezing, or packing of: produce, meat, and food.

Overtime rules do not apply to the canning, freezing, packing of: produce, meat, and food.

I believe that for all of the important characteristics, these should accurately represent what we're talking about. To me, the latter is clearly incorrect. A series must have an "and" or "or" to denote the last item, so the second example leaves you hanging without a final entry in the series. I keep expecting something more at the end.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Anubis IV]

That's an issue with the correct use of appositives and capitalization, not the Oxford comma.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[AK Marc]

Laws use formatting to indicate structure. When I was trying to find the original law, I ended up at 3 different articles that formatted it as I did. It's quite common to have a numbered list separated.

If the formatting was irrelevant, why did you abandon the formatting to push your interpretation?

To me, the latter is clearly incorrect.

Then you don't even understand the question. "Incorrect English" isn't a valid argument, unless one is trying to strike down the law, which neither party was trying to do in this case. Is it unambiguously parseable? Yes, the second is more unambiguously parseable than the first (without the Oxford comma you added in, which was irrelevant to the issue at hand).

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[Anubis IV]

If the formatting was irrelevant, why did you abandon the formatting to push your interpretation?

I didn't drop the formatting to push my interpretation. I dropped the formatting because it allowed the examples to fit nicely on one line, making them easier to compare with one another. Nothing more. If you think the formatting of the numbered list is relevant to the interpretation of the series, I'll disagree, but I have no problem with the formatting, so feel free to continue using it.

As to validity and whatnot, it's clear we're talking about different topics. I thought you were asking about the grammatical validity of the example you provided, hence why I addressed "correct" usage, but if you're talking about the legal validity, it seems to me that the sentence is wildly inconsistent, making it virtually impossible to say with any certainty what either the intended or actual meanings are. And even if we accept my interpretation that, as it is currently written, "distribution" must be it's own element, the sentence is still inconsistent (e.g. if it's in the series, then why doesn't it end in "-ing" like the rest of the items, and why doesn't it have an Oxford comma before it like how they used the semicolons inthe numbered list?), so my interpretation doesn't solve anything from a legal perspective (though I never intended for it to do so).

All of which is to say that the only one who's right in all of this is the judge. He ruled that it was ambiguous, which it is.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[AK Marc]

I thought you were asking about the grammatical validity of the example you provided,

Once it's in the courts, the question is about legal validity. At that point, the "best English" is irrelevant, and only the meaning is of interest.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[bluegutang]

In general, it's a legal-philosophical question whether to read laws according to meaning of the words, or according to the author's intent.

Comes up frequently in discussions of the constitution (2nd Amendment and so on)

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is correct

[michael_wojcik]

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

Easily solved: neither is "technically correct". English is a natural language and has no generally-recognized authority. Ascribing rules to it is the prescriptive fallacy. Any English statement that's understood by a sufficiently-large audience is "correct", and terms like "understood" and "sufficiently-large" have no precise definitions either.

Descriptivism is the only supportable position regarding English usage. That has always been the case - there probably weren't any attempts to standardize Old English, and by the time Middle English got rolling, with competing Germanic and Romance vocabularies and wildly inconsistent orthography, all bets were off. The occasional schoolmarmish attempts by self-appointed language fiddlers like the Neo-Augustans to clamp down often had some effect, but never anything like what they hoped to achieve.

Be Consistent

[in10se]

(1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods.

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.

Re:Be Consistent

[Infiniti2000]

Good point. By using the semicolon before "and (3)" the authors of the law didn't forget the comma before "or distribution"; they simply didn't intend to separate packing and distribution. Or, so it's reasonable to argue.

Re:Be Consistent

[whoever57]

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"

Re:Lacking Lingual Ability

[Anonymous Coward]

You fail it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma

Seems like it would be worded differently

[MiniMike]

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

[Tomahawk]

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 for the win!)

Re:ambiguity

[Anonymous Coward]

The court ruled it ambiguous and that public policy for labor laws is to protect the laborers, so they ruled in favor of the truck drivers. If the truck driver's interest would have been served with a comma there, they would have gone the other way.

Re:ambiguity

[prince hal]

Note this passage on the serial comma from Wikipedia:

In American English, a majority of style guides mandate use of the serial comma, including APA style,[5] The Chicago Manual of Style, The MLA Style Manual, Strunk and White's Elements of Style,[6] and the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual. In contrast, the Associated Press Stylebook and the stylebook published by The Canadian Press for journalistic writing advise against it. It is used less often in British English,[7] but some British style guides require it, including The Oxford Style Manual.[8] According to The Oxford Companion to the English Language, "Commas are used to separate items in a list or sequence ... Usage varies as to the inclusion of a comma before and in the last item ... This practice is controversial and is known as the serial comma or Oxford comma, because it is part of the house style of Oxford University Press."[9] Some use it only where necessary to avoid ambiguity,[10] in contrast to such guides as Garner's Modern American Usage, which advocate its routine use to avoid ambiguity.

Note that the U.S. Government Printing Office Style Manual is one of the style guides that mandate the use of the serial comma. So maybe the state of Maine simply hasn't done its homework? And yes, I would have to agree with the truckers, especially since delivering milk for a dairy is NOT one of the seasonal jobs that the law was designed to account for. Just try to tell a herd of cows that they have to wait until spring to get milked. You'd have, I can't help saying, a moo-tiny on your hands.

Re:ambiguity

[whoever57]

The comma only reduces ambiguity in this case if you assume the meaning. What if the original intent was as the court has concluded?

Re:ambiguity

[flopsquad]

As a pro-comma language nerd, I'm genuinely curious to find situations in which the Oxford adds ambiguity. Do you have any examples?

Re:ambiguity

[hesiod]

Then they should have rewritten the sentence so that there was no chance of ambiguity.

Re:ambiguity

[Tomahawk]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

They are few, but they exist.

Re:ambiguity

[whoever57]

Then they should have rewritten the sentence so that there was no chance of ambiguity.

But what would we discuss then? Where's the fun in that?

Re:ambiguity

[whoever57]

... or, more likely, where are the billing hours for lawyers in that?

It's happened before

[k6mfw]

Reminds me back in the days textbook had an example of missing comma in a legal document. Results was large sums of money and time spent in court. I have to admit there are times when I get scared of using a comma. I will avoid them in this post.

Re:It's happened before

[Tablizer]

The dinosaurs even got wiped out by an asterisk.

Re:It's happened before

[SuiteSisterMary]

You can also safely never use semicolons; nobody else ever uses them.

Video of writing the law

[pesho]

Here is footage of the Maine legislature writing the law in question.

Re:Video of writing the law

[flopsquad]

+3 Internets.

11th-inning argument

[Anonymous Coward]

This didn't happen because of a comma, it happened because of American businesses' "plantation owner" mentality toward their fellow sovereign citizens. People are property, and property shouldn't complain when it's disposed of. It just so happens that the comma was an obvious hole in the armor of extra-Constitutional privileges and immunities that are typically enjoyed by one of America's [corporate] Ultra-citizens.

$10M, huh?

[Nutria]

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.

Re:$10M, huh?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Just like Cal Berkeley yanked all 10,000 educational videos over a lawsuit,

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 risk of further lawsuits), or they could solve the problem by just removing the videos....

So, how much of your own money would you be willing to spend to provide a free service to all and sundry after you were sued for not providing enough free services?

Re:$10M, huh?

[Nutria]

The cases are analogous, not exact.

So (the dairy) looked the situation over, figured out that they'd have to spend (ten of million dollars) to resolve the court case (with an ever-present risk of further lawsuits), or they could solve the problem by just closing up shop.

Re:$10M, huh?

[david_thornley]

People who run businesses, and make their living from them, do not typically shut them down in a snit. The Berkeley case didn't involve shutting down a line of business.

Re:$10M, huh?

[Archangel Michael]

I'm sorry? Stupid laws have stupid unintended consequences that end up being worse for everyone because we can't "disadvantage" certain classes. The net result (and a function of Liberalism) is that EVERYONE is equally disadvantaged in the end.

And thus, the playing field is level, because we cripple everyone, so that those that are crippled don't feel bad. And that is fair.

Filed under "This is why we can't have nice things"

Grammar Nazis, Unite!

[VorpalRodent]

I appreciate having a story that is directed explicitly towards the grammatically sensitive among us. It's good that Slashdot tries to cover its bases as far as keeping pedants appropriately stimulated.

Re:Grammar Nazis, Unite!

[msmash]

Thanks! Really appreciate it. We put a lot of effort in finding the right stories for our core readers.

Re:Grammar Nazis, Unite!

[meta-monkey]

I have to agree. It's not tech, but it sure is News for Nerds. Great pick.

Re:Grammar Nazis, Unite!

[maelkum]

Whooosh!

(or the @msmash editor has a sense of humour)

First part of sentence should have been a list

[jfdavis668]

The second part of the sentence is written as a list, with a colon and semi-colons. To be very precise, the first part should have been a list, too. Clunky English, but would be accurate way to state the legal rule.

Time to introduce lists into the drafting of laws

[NotARealUser]

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 bullet points into the legal documents. Another possibility is that lists could also be explicitly declared through a list indicator... i.e. All lists must be put in parentheses and put in a delimited format. They should really consult architects and teachers of computer languages when standardizing on a format. But the point is that there should be no ambiguity when reading the document.

The right to bear arms shall not be infringed

[Overzeetop]

Politicians suck at writing clear, concise sentences.

Re:The right to bear arms shall not be infringed

[EmagGeek]

Absolutely. I have several sets of bear arms mounted above my fireplace. I love the fact that I can have as many bear arms as I want. They're so furry and make for excellent decor.

Executable

[The Evil Atheist]

Just mandate that laws are written in an executable language, like Python or Scheme, and then it must go through rigorous testing.

Re:Executable

[Baron_Yam]

I will often throw brackets into sentences to make things clearer. That would absolutely have resolved the issue in TFA.

Re:Executable

[sir-gold]

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.

Re:Executable

[Baron_Yam]

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.

Re:Executable

[sir-gold]

I had no idea that term applied to more than just square brackets. It seems obvious in retrospect, though: if they were the only kind of brackets, it wouldn't be necessary to specify that they are square.

Re:Time to introduce lists into the drafting of la

[green1]

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.

Sooo........

[Freischutz]

... If I understand this correctly this means is that grammar and spelling Nazis actually serve a purpose other than to annoy the hell rest of us? Until now I had ranked them somewhere between hairdressers and telephone sanitisers and on the usefulness scale. Since I'll be travelling on space Arkship C with the workers to New Earth, to escape the Orange Menace that threatens to destroy Old Earth, and since I'm in charge of passenger scheduling, think I'll move the grammar Nazis from space Arkship B which is destined to settle a nearby black hole. I'm going to move them to Arkship A which will accompany Arkship C to New Earth where it's occupants will colonise the southern continent which they have decided to call Atlantis and whose capital are planning to call 'Galt's Gulch'. Grammar Nazis may be useful but I'm sure as hell not travelling all the way to New Earth on the same ship as those annoying little toadies. I'm sure the leaders, scientists and other high achievers on Arkship A will enjoy the endless conversations abut the finer points of grammar and spelling on the looooong journey to New Earth.

Associativity of OR:

[John Allsup]

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.

Re:Associativity of OR:

[whoever57]

It's not insane. Look at the second list: the items are joined by "and" not "or". This is English, not Boolean logic.

Re:Associativity of OR:

[sir-gold]

Unless they are trying to argue that "A and B and (C or D)" is meant - given context, that is insane.

The line is written as "A,B,C or D"

In oxford english, it means A or B or (C or D) due to the missing comma after the C
This is the way the drivers are reading it

In non-oxford english, it means A or B or C or D.
This is the way the company is reading it.

Re:Associativity of OR:

[SmilingBoy]

Not really. With Oxford comma, for it to mean A or B or (C or D), it would have been written as "A, B, or C or D".

Re:Lacking Lingual Ability

[Khyber]

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

[harperska]

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 said truckers most certainly do have a case.

Vampire Weekend

[cloud.pt]

Who gives a f*...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

They need a better language

[Cyphase]

tasks = ['canning', 'processing', 'preserving', 'freezing', 'drying', 'marketing', 'storing', 'packing for shipment', 'distributing']
products = ['agricultural produce', 'meat and fish products', 'perishable foods']
overtime_exceptions = ['{} {}'.format(t, p) for t in tasks for p in products]

Re:They need a better language

[Gogogoch]

But the list does not include "distributing", read it again. If it had, you would be right.

Re:They need a better language

[Cyphase]

It includes 'distribution', which is a noun, so I just changed it to a verb, like all the others.

Disambiguation

[billybob2001]

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.

computers understand Oxford commas. why can't we?

[mad7777]

Maybe it's just a professional bias, but in my field, elements of a list are separated by commas. Why should it be otherwise?

viz.:
{ a, b, c }

It doesn't matter

[mlwmohawk]

(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.

Correction of typo...

[billybob2001]

Is there a distinction between "shipment" and "distribution" of the 3 classes of items?

Rather than what I typed:

Is there a distinction between "packing" and "distribution" of the 3 classes of items?

Truckers are right, and here's why

[Gogogoch]

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.

Re:computers understand Oxford commas. why can't w

[Gogogoch]

Because: natural language.

Or: { a, b, c=>{x,y} }

Your reading is wrong. Because we're not robots.

[Brannon]

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 there's no seg fault just because some law has some kind of ambiguity in it.

Because we're not robots.

Re:Lacking Lingual Ability

[sir-gold]

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.

Re:Lacking Lingual Ability

[msauve]

"shipment and distribution are one and the same thing."

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.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is not correct

[dcavanaugh]

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 the number of items on the list. The last item is everything after the last comma. Notice the lack of punctuation in "shipment or distribution". Those terms belong together because there is no punctuation to indicate otherwise. In like manner, there is no punctuation after the "for" so we end up with "for shipment or distribution". What does the "for" clause apply to? packing. The last item on the list is "packing", qualified by the rest of the words. If the legislature had something else in mind, they would have written this differently.

Dreaded?

[markdavis]

>"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/... ) 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).

Re:computers understand Oxford commas. why can't w

[mad7777]

In spoken language, there is a pause between each element in a list and the following one. The comma is generally understood to represent this pause in writing.

"A [pause] B [pause] and C" would be transcribed as "A, B, and C". I still don't understand why we would want to remove the last comma. Seems kinda arbitrary and... unnatural.

What I read.

[bigdavex]

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.

All of the exempted activities are gerunds. If the writers wanted the list of exemptions to include distributing, it would have also been written as a the gerund distributing.

   

This is an easy problem for any CS major

[hey!]

The problem is we don't have enough lexical tokens to build the grammar we want. Commas perform two distinct functions: they separate items on a list, and they separate grammatical clauses. It turns out that situations arise where you can't know which function a comma is performing without prior knowledge of the writer's intent.

Suppose I write, "I owe everything to Jocasta, my wife, and my mother." There's no telling whether I'm talking about two people or three. Even if you *know* I use the Oxford Comma to separate every single item in lists, there's no way to determine that's what I'm doing here; "Jocasta" and "my wife" may be the same person. The only way for you to figure out my meaning is to have prior knowledge of my wife's name.

Yet if I adopt the policy of *never* using the Oxford comma, that leads to equally ambiguous results. Try it. There is simply no way to fix this problem working with nothing but commas.

Now as a CS graduate, the solution is clear: I need distinct tokens to separate list items and appositive clauses. Suppose I use "+" for list items and em-dash to set off appositive clauses:

I owe everything to Jocasta -- my wife -- + and my mother.
I owe everything to Jocasta + my wife + and my mother.

Or if you're Oedipus Rex:

I owe everything to Jocasta -- my wife and my mother.

But until a major style guide adopts distinctive punctuation marks, we're stuck with ambiguity. That means you have no choice but to read any list or appositive clause you've written with a critical eye, and then rewrite the sentence if it can be misinterpreted. The result may be awkward and ungainly ("I owe everything to my wife, Jocasta, and also to my mother.") and the whole process is irritating, but you have no choice.

The panda eats shoots and leaves

[dcavanaugh]

The panda eats shoots and leaves.
The lack of a comma means that "and" is the conjunction between "shoots" and "leaves". What is the panda doing? Eating.

But consider this:
The panda eats, shoots, and leaves.
What is the [armed] panda doing? Eating, shooting, and leaving.

In the first example, there is no comma, and therefore the words are interpreted as a single action.
In the second example, 2 commas create a list with exactly 3 items.

How hard is it to disarm a panda? All you have to do is get rid the commas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Applying the panda scenario to today's crisis, it becomes obvious that commas determine the number of items on a list, and words in the absence of a comma are interpreted together when there is no punctuation to group them any other way.

Re:The panda eats shoots and leaves

[tomhath]

Nope. The Oxford comma only applies to the last conjunction. So your sentence is : "The panda eats shoots, and leaves.". There is no other way to parse it.

Game Over

[Murdoch5]

The comma missing means the truckers are 100% right. You can't just ignore grammar when you don't want to pay someone overtime.

The first line of TFS.

[BadMrMojo]

... hinged entirely on a debate that has bitterly divided friends, families and foes: The dreaded -- or totally necessary -- Oxford comma, ...

... Seriously? Are we really going to do this?

math

[Khashishi]

Mathematicians solved this problem long ago. It's called the order of operations. We just need to start using parentheses to indicate grouping.

Re:This is why debate transcripts and intent matte

[david_thornley]

The list is a set of exemptions to a law, and it's reasonable to interpret an ambiguous set of exemptions minimally.

Re:Oakhurst Dairy is not correct

[Archangel Michael]

The way I actually read the text the last verb "packing" is what is exempt. The "shipment or distribution" should read as parenthetical clarification of what is being "packed"

, packing (for shipment or distribution).

But since it is unclear in total (the reason for this case) the "historical" interpretation should be the one that remains, until the legislature fixes its intention by clarifying said law/regulation.

An old example, but worth it.

[Hussman32]

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."

Exemption Is a problem

[JimSadler]

Theater's were also exempted from paying minimum wage. It is true that theaters would have been put out of business if they were required to pay minimum wages for ushers, candy girls and cashiers. But we all exist in the same economic system. If a business can not pay then it should not exist. And it becomes even more perverted across industries. In the case under discussion we are considering truck drivers. Truck drivers are restrained by law for the hours they are allowed to drive or allowed to even be in a cab as a passenger or alternate driver. So getting paid much overtime pushes them into working a six or seven day week or they would be breaking one set of laws or another. What genius has decided that people pushed into working six days or seven days a week do not deserve over time pay? Matter of fact a driver working more than five days a week is a public hazard and also a hazard to their own health and well being. Being stuck in a chair bumping down a road for fifty hours a week surely must destroy one's health.

Seasonal workers need better pay

[rsilvergun]

they should be paid at least enough to get them to the next season. This is why Donald Trump uses work visas for his seasonal workers. He doesn't pay enough for somebody to drop everything they're doing and work for him at Mar-a-Lago or whatever for 6 months. I'm always reminded of this.

I forgot to add

[rsilvergun]

Here's what happens when you raise farm worker wages to the living wage. A pound of apples goes from $1 to $1.06 (adding a little to get it up to $15/hr since it's an old article).

Re:I forgot to add

[AK Marc]

The NYT gave their sources. Did you try there?

Re:I forgot to add

[lgw]

Never will I give the NYT a click. You don't fund the enemy.

Re:I forgot to add

[AK Marc]

That you are unwilling to check sources proves you wrong. The real reason Republicans are against any aid for mental illness. If everyone were cured, they'd have no voters left.

My favourite example

[minus9]

From a TV listing in The Times:

"By train, plane and sedan chair, Peter Ustinov retraces a journey made by Mark Twain a century ago. The highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector."

Re:Lacking Lingual Ability

[Khyber]

"Distribution occurs when there's a change of hands."

Guess what? Almost every manufacturer (hah!) in the USA use a third party logistics provider. It's immediately distribution as the possession already changed hands from one company to another, because most times, that product made isn't shipping from the manufacturer until IT HAS ALREADY BEEN SOLD.

Source: I used to work for Weber Distribution. Primary customers: STAR Foods, Target stores, Delta Airlines.

Re:Lacking Lingual Ability

[msauve]

"Almost every manufacturer "

Guess what? Laws are written to cover all manufacturers, not "almost every" one.

the cost of a comma

[benjonson]

Really, how much does a comma cost? The Oxford comma is not only the more simple rule, it is unambiguous.

Now if you think about it, this could be an unnecessary comma for some folks, or in some situations where it is really not needed. But in information theory, redundancy is a plus--it avoids common errors. For example, in common English text, a period (or other end-marker like a question mark) ends a sentence, an extra space may follow, and a capital letter begins the new sentence. Three indicators that say -- OK, sentence ending, new one beginning. Very useful practically, because it reduces parsing time.

Re:Can You Read?

[AK Marc]

" canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing" Are all gerunds. All the same part of speech, and conjugation. They seem to constitute 100% of the list. The question seems to simplify down to what is the prepositional phrase.

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
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

Based on word tense, the first seems more correct.

Uhh

[easyTree]

Maybe we can at long last update our archaic languages with parentheses for clarity?

Seriously people - antiques are overrated.

Re:Lacking Lingual Ability

[Khyber]

Guess what? Those laws don't provide equal treatment as required by the 14th amendment, so any competent lawyer could really get them shut down.