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comment by Formerly_Me
Formerly_Me  ·  2568 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Oxford Comma: Great For Listing, Pontificating, And Winning Court Cases

That line of argument doesn't make a whole lot of sense. If commas meant "and" then why not use semicolons instead? (I'm not trying to argue with you; I'm just putting into text something I noticed.)





lil  ·  2568 days ago  ·  link  ·  

It doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's how they teach children to punctuate a list. They give them this sentence, "He came home with a book and a toy and a bat and a ball."

Then they tell the junior units to put a comma where the ands are -- except the last one.

I don't think they get to semicolons till at least grade 8, if ever.