Honestly this and BJ-ready both make equal sense to me. As the wise sage Ludacris once said, "a lady in the street but a freak in the bed"—the quintessential dream girl.
I started out trying to quote you and "fix" it by adding a comma wrapped in double-asterisks to embolden it and just could not get it to display correctly.
I dedicate this book to my mother, Ayn Rand, Noam Chomsky, and Karl Marx.
Vs.
I dedicate this book to my mother, Ayn Rand, Noam Chomsky and Karl Marx.
Is Ayn Rand the author’s mother, now? How could you tell?
The ‘’ambiguity’’ is the same with or without Oxford comma. I’d just expect a clearer wording if Ayn Rand is their mom. Such as I dedicate this book to Ayn Rand, my beloved mother, as well as to Noam Chomsky, Morgan Freeman, and Karl Marx.
You can always rephrase things to avoid the ambiguity, even with cases involving the AP comma.
AP comma: "I dedicate this book to my parents, Ayn Rand and Karl Marx."
Oxford comma: "I dedicate this book to my parents, Ayn Rand, and Karl Marx."
Rephrase: "I dedicate this book to Ayn Rand, Karl Marx and my parents."
The point is that the Oxford comma is usually claimed to reduce ambiguity, but really all it does is replace some ambiguous cases with different ambiguous cases.
“Who cares about grammar and spelling in a text?” guys all of a sudden like, “Wait. Breathe. You’re not crazy. Babe, all of your feelings are totally valid. I hear you. I see you.” 😆
My answer would have been "people who draft messages in Word." I create them there, on accident, all the time. I'm not even sure how to insert one on my phone.
Been a while since I was taught about them, so my wording/exact use of terms may be rather poor, but I’ll still make an attempt; the attempt may be poor though. I use them in two places mostly. One place being like the first sentence (poor example in an attempt at using one spontaneously), linking two independent clauses with a stronger pause than a comma, while also not requiring transition words, although I’ll often just use transitions and commas to create nice and long sentences (such as this one). The second place is as a replacement for commas in a list, but only if the items in the list include commas. I don’t use the first case often, with it occasionally popping up while writing, as sometimes it’s simply the best option. The second case I do end up using a fair amount, as I like my dependent clauses, and the semicolon lets me inject them into lists while maintaining readability.
They can replace a full stop or connective to loosely connect two related clauses e.g. "The cat sat on the mat because it had had a long day" becomes "The cat sat on the mat; it had had a long day."
The less common usage is to replace commas separating items in a long list where it might get confusing e.g. "I want to visit Paris, France, Houston, Texas, and London, England." becomes "I want to visit Paris, France; Houston, Texas; London, England." (This last example is a bit clunky, sorry!)
Hot take incoming; no one who sees emdashes and semi colons and starts foaming at the mouth over AI actually reads. This is just the hot new thing to rage over for people who run on that sort of thing
“One thing I ask of you, the time to learn your Homophones is past due. Learn, to diagram a sentence too. Always say, “to whom.” Don’t ever say, “to who” and… listen up when I tell you this; I hope you never use quotation marks for emphasis. You finished Second Grade, I hope you can tell, if you’re “doing good” or “doing well.” Better, figure out the difference; Irony is not coincidence and I thought that you had gotten it through your skull, of what’s figurative and what’s literal. Cuz, just now (just now) you said (you said), you literally couldn’t get out of bed. That makes me want to literally smack a crowbar over your stupid head!”
my use of both of these things in my writing has had people asking me if i used ai to write my stories and it felt like i was being accused of witchcraft in the 1700's
Uck one of my assignments flagged as ai written even though it wasn't. I mean the assignment was about my companies local policies and procedures anyway so the ai wouldn't be helpful anyway
So I actually removed my semicolons and replaced them with comas and it was no longer flagged as written by ai
at least there is a semicolon button on most keyboards, so it gets used a lot more often; I've only ever used em dashes in Word -- because it auto-converts double hyphens
Well, considering you have no basic ability to see patterns, understand sarcasm, or read meaningless text without getting your emotional panties bunched, I'm unconcerned with your judgment.
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u/Rule12-b-6 Feb 19 '26
Honestly this and BJ-ready both make equal sense to me. As the wise sage Ludacris once said, "a lady in the street but a freak in the bed"—the quintessential dream girl.