On: The Oxford Comma – Why and Why Not (2024)

[alistairSH]

I always heard this one...

We invited the strippers, JFK, and Stalin to the party. [three groups invited - strippers, a president, and a premier]

We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin to the party. [the president and premier are strippers]

Very different visual conjured by those two sentences.

[comprev → alistairSH]

"John helped his uncle, Jack off a horse"

"John helped his uncle Jack off a horse"

Two very different outcomes...

[h4ch1 → comprev]

shouldn't there be another comma after Jack?

John helped his uncle, Jack, off a horse.

Because while speaking it I only pause after uncle and "Jack off a horse" together next. feels like there should be another pause after Jack?

[PaulDavisThe1st → alistairSH]

I'd prefer:

We invited the strippers, JFK and Stalin, to the party [two strippers, named JFK and Stalin]

if the goal is to minimize ambiguity.

[al_borland → PaulDavisThe1st]

I can see it being tiresome to read text where the author is continuously interjecting clarification with brackets.

[PaulDavisThe1st → al_borland]

The square-bracket clarifications here are meta-text designed to absolutely clarify the intended reading of the preceding text, so that the reader can contrast their understanding with the intended one.

There is no suggestion that one would do this in "regular" text.

[robertoandred → alistairSH]

If JFK and Stalin were strippers, there’d be a comma after Stalin to denote the parenthetical clause.

[Avshalom → alistairSH]

I mean first off: no the exact same image is conjured because we are reading this in context of knowing who jfk and stalin are and we know they aren't strippers and all language is contextual.

That said:

We invited the stripper, JFK, and Stalin to the party.

We invited the stripper, JFK and Stalin to the party.

The supposed ambiguity is back. Although again there is no ambiguity to the reader. The juxtaposition of the two versions wouldn't work as a joke if there was any ambiguity

[alistairSH → Avshalom]

Fine, I’ll be boring…

We invited the strippers, Krystal and Britney, to the party.

We invited the strippers, Krystal, and Britney, to the party.

And yes, if strippers is made singular, poor Krystal becomes Schrödinger‘s Stripper.