Start reading book

>we invited jfk, stalin and the stripper
Is it really that difficult?

>we invited JFK, the stripper and Stalin.
>JFK is both a stripper and Stalin

JFK is Stalin?

>American education at work
>thinks he knows English
>bad photoshoop skills

Who cares? Homer didn't use commas.

>JFK is a stripper and a Stalin

I never saw an example of the oxford comma's "usefulness" that wasn't trivially rewritten
it's just a bunch of buzzfeed wank

go back to your safe space on /pol/, drumpflet

Anyone got any tips/resources for improving grammar and sentence structure?

We invited JFK and a stripper and Stalin

Woah... Trump btfo forever

Jesus Christ, the number of non-English speaking retards in this thread. The OP is correct.

With the statement "jfk, the stripper, and stalin", the stripper would be an appositive indicating that JFK is a stripper. The Oxford comma creates ambiguity in any listing where the singular is used, it only adds clarity with multiples. IE: "strippers, jfk, and stalin" where not using it would create the ambiguity: "strippers, jfk and stalin" implying that jfk and stalin are strippers by placing the appositive before the comma.

Understand? The OP is correct and you fucking brainlets should never have graduated sixth grade English.

lol

>implying there are any "rules" to English and that it's not just a jumble of arbitrary visual depictions of yet more arbitrary audio depictions of internal thoughts
>Implying context isn't vastly more important than grammar in establishing meaning
>Implying that any one person has authority to say what is and isn't proper grammar
ITT: plebs

my next book is going to be just photographs of me drooling on my keyboard.

Thank you

>only adds clarity with multiples
read this and weep, kys btw familia

Kindly read this book, it might provide some insight.

>unironically recommending a book that only exists solely due to marketing and bandwagoning

...

That's not how Oxford commas work, despite what Google Images told you. The top example has "a racist" as being an appositive, implying there that Donald Trump is a racist and then further clarified as a misogynist. Whoever made the picture is a fucking retard trying to put a spin on the old JFK stripper one by using the article "a" but they failed miserably. Worse, you quoted them and embarrassed yourself.

Again, why don't you people know how appositives work? Had that example been correct, I'd have addressed it. You quoting it doesn't make it anymore correct.

I don't know why I'm always consistently surprised by a literary board that doesn't know basic grammar.

Stalin for time until the stripper comes.

You could make the second thing you're complaining about into a bizarre appositive. Find me a source that says you can't. It's just a noun or noun phrase.

>find me evidence of a negative
That's not how burden of proof works. You claim that the literary rule exists, prove it.

Nope. You're the one who said that's not how they work.

You have it backwards. You're stating that this phrase can't be an appositive, because...? Where's the rule?

data.grammarbook.com/blog/commas/commas-with-appositives/

There's no such thing as "bizarre appositives" or whatever fucking imaginary literary device you made up to excuse your public education tier understanding of grammar.

>no such thing as "bizarre appositives"

That's because I was calling that particular appositive bizarre. Jesus, and you're talking down to me?

Here, let me break it down for you.

>the stripper and Stalin

What if I wanted to say he was both? It can be a noun phrase. There's nothing saying it can't.

there's nothing about 'jfk, the stripper, and stalin" to indicate that means JFK is a stripper

That's literally what an appositive is. For example if JFK *is* a stripper and you were talking about him and Stalin. It'd be: "JFK, the stripper, and Stalin. "

Or the OP that's trying to teach people how appositives and Oxford commas work (assuming it's still him and he didn't just abandon the thread after starting the argument) and you: "the OP, the teacher, and you."

The precise identifier in both examples are JFK and the OP, with the appositive that provides more information following in surrounded commas being "the stripper" and "the teacher". Understand?

Because Stalin is a proper noun. That's why the original example used strippers and why the knockoff one with racist and misogynist don't work.

if you want to indicate JFK is the stripper just say "JFK the stripper", or better yet

>We invited Stalin and JFK, the stripper.

depending on the context the standard one can actually work if the presence of a stripper is already made known and distinct from JFK

You're just supposed to be born with the knowledge apparently

Strippers' name is 'Stalin and JFK'? Odd name but OK.

Are you American?

Well, yeah, obviously rephrasing is the best bet. But this isn't a discussion about that, it's about how the Oxford comma creates ambiguity which necessitates rephrasing.

The age-old argument is about whether the Oxford comma is correct or not. The answer is, depending on sentence structure it either creates or removed ambiguity. Since in either case it can be fixed by changing sentence structure, which means that the Oxford comma is literally a superfluous additional punctuation. Which is why the majority of businesses and typography have switched to the AP method.

But if you bring up the Oxford comma being incorrect (or more accurately, less correct), you bring out the people who have been ignorantly using it their whole lives who will die a thousand deaths before admitting it's wrong.

No but the 't' doesn't work on m laptop.

Why not copy a y onto the clipboard and ctrl+v it every time it comes up?

that's what I do with 't

marxism, and atheism is shit.

But an appositive can be used with proper nouns. There just needs to be a precise enough identifier, easy. The father of the Simpson household, Homer...Who else? There's only one. Now, JFK as Stalin would make no sense under normal circumstances for all sorts of reasons, but it can be correct in certain (fictional) contexts like the example in the OP. It's not inherently a solecism. If there's a dumb story about JFK living a double life as Stalin, then this would work; Stalin can become nonessential. Or maybe, Stalin is disguised and going by an alias. That's probably what it would imply. This can arguably be done right off the bat, because things get weird like that when someone goes by two names.

LOL

ITT: MERELY PRETENDING

This isn't true since the "the stripper" is the object in this case. So your retarded post is bogus. QED.

lol wrong af

kys

This is the wrongest thing I have read on Veeky Forums, since the stripper in this case is the object, not an epithetic prosdiorism.

Veeky Forums everyone

>implying obama wasn't racist against white people

>ITT: prescriptivists psueds
If it accurately depicts the idea I'm trying to convay in a way intelligible by a native speaker then I'm going to use it. The only people making a big deal out of this non-issue are anti-oxfordists and it's the most pedantic grammatical argument currently circulating.

fucking commies and their edits

>arguing about squiggles

Damn, I got trolled pretty hard

Punctuation is just an orthographic tool that replicates the pauses that are used in speech. Use it in whatever way helps you present your ideas clearly.