snek_boi comments on Girls, burger or pizza?

[–] snek_boi@lemmy.ml 18 points 7 months ago (5 children)

Yuri memes delivering Oxford Comma propaganda… That definitely wasn't in my bingo card

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[–] four@lemmy.zip 9 points 7 months ago (4 children)

Wouldn't Oxford comma be "girls, burger, or pizza?"

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[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

It's my understanding that the Oxford comma only exists in lists that are at least three items long. So in the case of the original comic, there can not be an Oxford comma.

One element of the humor in this comic is the ambiguous place the comma occupies for representing a pause in English speech.

Unfortunately, my favorite punctuation for this type of pause in written English---the em dash---is now a sign of AI writing.

Consider,

"Girls, X or Y?"
"Girls---X, or Y?"

Both convey the nuances of pauses and emphasis in spoken English slightly differently.

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[–] snek_boi@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 months ago

If you consider “girls” as its own clause, then yes, the list is only two items long and therefore no Oxford comma is needed. But the joke precisely appears when you consider “girls” as part of the list and when you take into account that some people don’t use Oxford commas. If you do so, that leads to a 3-items-long list

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[–] kivihiili@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 7 months ago

or if you'd like to be a little more old-fashioned, see