The Oxford Comma
Oct. 17th, 2014 05:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conulyPeople often explain why it's necessary by talking about a party which includes "two strippers, Hitler, and Stalin" (as compared to "two strippers, Hitler and Stalin").
The trouble is that no matter how I work at it, I can't really picture what kind of party is going to invite two of recent history's most notorious dictators, especially when they weren't buddies. It's just not a realistic example.
Of course, whatever party they're both invited to probably involves copious liquor and, yes, strippers, so that's all right, but nevertheless it is hard for me to get behind that example. Best to just stick with thanking "my parents, God and Ayn Rand".
Sure, that dedication to an apocryphal book is a little silly and bland, but anybody who is likely to think both God and Ayn Rand is exactly the sort of person to make a bland dedication and flub the commas anyway, so no harm, no foul.
The trouble is that no matter how I work at it, I can't really picture what kind of party is going to invite two of recent history's most notorious dictators, especially when they weren't buddies. It's just not a realistic example.
Of course, whatever party they're both invited to probably involves copious liquor and, yes, strippers, so that's all right, but nevertheless it is hard for me to get behind that example. Best to just stick with thanking "my parents, God and Ayn Rand".
Sure, that dedication to an apocryphal book is a little silly and bland, but anybody who is likely to think both God and Ayn Rand is exactly the sort of person to make a bland dedication and flub the commas anyway, so no harm, no foul.
