Wikipedia has an interesting example where it's still ambiguous:
They went to Oregon with Betty, a maid, and a cook.
Personally if I wanted to indicate that Betty was the maid I would put "a maid" between brackets or hyphens.
If Betty was the maid and the cook, I would write...
If it was three people, I would write...The maid implies there was just one. Who travels with their only maid? Who will keep the manor lights on?
> They went to Oregon with Betty, the maid, and the cook.
Betty could be the maid. English meaning depends partly on word order:
Still ambiguous. In the former, I suppose the maid might be the cook also. The latter moves more easily and with less ambiguity.Or just switch the order if Betty is the maid and you don't want to provide additional context:
``` They went to Oregon with a cook and Betty, a maid. ```
“a maid and cook.”
“a maid, and cook.”
This sounds like a case where we should just change the syntax. If Betty is the maid it should be written:
This is how I was taught. Use ( ) or -- -- here and the Oxford comma for list of 3 or more.
I get lazy with adding the comma before the "and" in list, and without fail I hear my grandmother/father/teachers pointing out how wrong I am for doing so. Same for my use of semicolons followed by "and" or "but".
I never realized the Oxford comma was even something up for debate.
(They (went (to Oregon) (with ((Betty (a maid)) and (a cook))))).
((That (is (the (most natural) syntax))) and ((all (of us)) (should (switch (to it))))).
Many years ago working on natural language to SQL, when we had ambiguities this is how we’d clarify things with the user (albeit with the minimal amount of brackets necessary).
It looks like you might have learned how to diagram a sentence as a youth
As written it is perfectly clear that Betty is neither the maid nor the cook, neither of whom the author bothered to name in this sentence. If that wasn't the author's intention they should grammar better.
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