[Ads-l] commas

ADSGarson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Fri Sep 21 20:12:52 UTC 2018


 James A. Landau wrote:
> also the following T-shirt:
>
> LET'S EAT GRANDMA
> LET'S EAT, GRANDMA
> Commas save lives

Back in March 2017 there was a thread initiated by Dennis Baron titled
"Let's eat grandpa: why punctuation isn't a matter of life and death,
even in the law."
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2017-March/146982.html

At the time I pointed to research by Barry Popik into this family of
jokes that began with a Google Books snippet match dated 1949.
http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2017-March/147031.html

Here is a link to Barry's webpage on the topic:
https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/lets_eat_grandma_or_lets_eat_grandma_punctuation_saves_lives

Garson

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