[Ads-l] Humorous Serial Comma Examples =?utf-8?Q?=E2=80=94_?=Are They Genuine or Apocryphal?

dave@wilton.net dave at WILTON.NET
Wed Dec 28 13:09:34 UTC 2022


Humor, or lack thereof, aside, my problem with such "examples" is that there is absolutely no ambiguity in them. The presence or absence of the serial comma makes no difference; no one is going to mistake the intended meaning. The important thing is clarity, not the comma.
 
Pedagogically, they give exactly the wrong lesson about language.
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: "ADSGarson O'Toole" <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2022 11:40pm
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] Humorous Serial Comma Examples — Are They Genuine or Apocryphal?



Here are three examples of sentences without Oxford commas:

(1) Book dedication: Dedicated to my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

(2) The highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson
Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.

(3) Among those interviewed were his two ex-wives, Kris Kristofferson
and Robert Duvall.

The analysis is available on the medium website here. I concluded that
one example was constructed by a humorist. The other two are genuine
examples or comical ambiguity printed in newspapers.

https://quoteinvestigator.medium.com/52dc15d0f4a8

Garson

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org


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