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

[dave@wilton.net]

Over the past few days I've struggled to find humorous examples of where inclusion of the serial comma creates ambiguity, but I've come up empty. I think the reason is that the ambiguity (usually?) arises out of confusion with an appositive phrase. Where the appositive would be silly, humor arises. 
 
"My parents, Ayn Rand and God" is funny (the first time) but not ambiguous.
 
"My parents, Mary and John" is ambiguous but not funny.
 
When it comes to using the serial comma:
 
"Kendall Jenner, a woman in a hijab, and positive messaging" is ambiguous but not funny.
 
"Mitt Romney, a woman in a hijab, and positive messaging" is funny but not ambiguous.
 
"Mitt Romney, a woman in a hijab and positive messaging" is neither funny nor ambiguous.
 
(These last are modifications of an example given by Stan Carey.)
 
By avoiding the serial comma, any humor arising out of confusion with the appositive is also avoided. But ambiguity can result from either using or avoiding the serial comma.
 
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: "James Landau" <00000c13e57d49b8-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2022 8:51am
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] Humorous Serial Comma Examples — Are They Genuine or Apocryphal?



Here's an example that I founmd not amusing but definitely ambiguous.

Lisa Scottoline  _Mistaken Identity_  New York: HarperCollins, 1999 ISBN 0-06-018747-6, page 99

"Bennie picked her way through the clutter on the floor, unpacked files and wallpaper books, down the narrow path her computer table."

The first time I read it, I interpreted "unpacked" as a verb and then was baffled by the strange grammar that produced.  It took several readings for me to understand that "unpacked" was the beginning of an appositive referring back to "clutter" and that "down...table" modified "picked".   The key was that double-decker prepositional phrase beginning "down".  "unpacked...down" does not sound like plausible English, and if "unpacked" were a verb, there should be an "and" either before "unpacked" or after "books" to create proper parallelism for the verbs.  Also there should not be a comma before "down".

By the way, my favorite humorous example: "He loaded the car with heavy luggage, two dogs and his wife."
.
James Landau
jjjrlandau at netscape.com

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