Good grammar is essential.

[Animavore]

If you've ever corrected someone's grammar only to be told grammar doesn't matter, here's proof that person is wrong.

Oakhurst Dairy in Maine just lost a multi-million dollar court case over an Oxford comma. For those who are unaware, the Oxford comma is the comma between the last two entries in a list of three or more items, like in the sentence, "Cows can be black, white, and brown."

...

Maine state law says employees are ineligible for overtime pay if they work in "the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution" of some food products.

Drivers were able to successfully argue that the law exempted workers involved in packing for shipment or packing for distribution, rather than exempting both packers and distributors.

The tiny missing punctuation mark will result in a payout — 75 drivers will get to split an

http://www.newsy.com/stories/grammar-ma ... d5f3e08d7d

[Tyrannical]

Meanwhile, back in 1872......

https://priceonomics.com/the-most-expen ... e-history/

“The preamble of the ‘free’ list provided that all articles therein enumerated should be exempt from duty on and after Aug. 1, 1872. Certain importers asserted that the word ‘fruit’ in the free list of the Act of 1872 permitted the free entry of all tropical or semi-tropical fruits, and the claims [refunds on duties paid abroad] were filed on the shipments as they came in.”

Initially, the Secretary of the Treasury rejected these claims on the grounds that the grammatical error was “clearly intended to read otherwise.” Importers, unwilling to accept this, ignited a series of trials on the matter (original documents here), and it soon became clear that the Secretary’s excuse wouldn’t hold up in the courtroom. In December 1874, two years after the typo, the US government declared that, under the phrasing of the act, fruits were free. Duties were subsequently refunded -- to the tune of $2 million.

[Tyrannical]

Oh, and I look forward to Trump schooling the courts on grammar, especially the cruel and unusual punishment for a crime. Trump will have a lot of fun stripping citizenship from naturalised bad hombres and muslims.

[tattuchu]

If you've ever corrected someone's grammar only to be told grammar doesn't matter, here's proof that person is wrong.

Oakhurst Dairy in Maine just lost a multi-million dollar court case over an Oxford comma. For those who are unaware, the Oxford comma is the comma between the last two entries in a list of three or more items, like in the sentence, "Cows can be black, white, and brown."

...

Maine state law says employees are ineligible for overtime pay if they work in "the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution" of some food products.

Drivers were able to successfully argue that the law exempted workers involved in packing for shipment or packing for distribution, rather than exempting both packers and distributors.

The tiny missing punctuation mark will result in a payout — 75 drivers will get to split an

http://www.newsy.com/stories/grammar-ma ... d5f3e08d7d

[Svartalf]

I bug grammar with my approximative punctuation and mostly forgotten capitalisation.

[Brian Peacock]

Legal punctuation is a different beast from regular usage. Legal lists should employ the semi-colon for clarity.

[NineBerry]

Over here, when laws go through parliament, there are accompanying documents that detail how every single word of the legal text is meant. When there are later on disagreements on the meaning of some wording in legal texts, courts will use these documents. Isn't there a similar mechanism in the US?

[Tyrannical]

Over here, when laws go through parliament, there are accompanying documents that detail how every single word of the legal text is meant. When there are later on disagreements on the meaning of some wording in legal texts, courts will use these documents. Isn't there a similar mechanism in the US?

That's interesting, I assume the explanation doc is legally tied to the law, and is also part of the debate of the law before the vote.

In the US I guess we have committee notes when the law is discussed, and sometimes open floor debates. That type of intent is probably used most of the time in court. You do get the occasional activist judge or one that just decide oddly. But those are the ones that make the news.
The older the law the more willing the judges are to reinterpret it. Especially when a law passed after changes the fundamentals. When women got voting rights it started a long chain of reinterpretations.