It’s my understanding that the Oxford comma only exists in lists that are at least three items long. So in the case of the original comic, there can not be an Oxford comma.
One element of the humor in this comic is the ambiguous place the comma occupies for representing a pause in English speech.
Unfortunately, my favorite punctuation for this type of pause in written English—the em dash—is now a sign of AI writing.
Consider,
“Girls, X or Y?”
“Girls—X, or Y?”
Both convey the nuances of pauses and emphasis in spoken English slightly differently.
If you consider “girls” as its own clause, then yes, the list is only two items long and therefore no Oxford comma is needed. But the joke precisely appears when you consider “girls” as part of the list and when you take into account that some people don’t use Oxford commas. If you do so, that leads to a 3-items-long list
It’s my understanding that the Oxford comma only exists in lists that are at least three items long. So in the case of the original comic, there can not be an Oxford comma.
One element of the humor in this comic is the ambiguous place the comma occupies for representing a pause in English speech.
Unfortunately, my favorite punctuation for this type of pause in written English—the em dash—is now a sign of AI writing.
Consider,
Both convey the nuances of pauses and emphasis in spoken English slightly differently.
or if you’d like to be a little more old-fashioned, see
it does have its shortcomings (a fair bit of them), but also in the right context is a little charmful too!
punctuation in english is beautifully chaotic
If you consider “girls” as its own clause, then yes, the list is only two items long and therefore no Oxford comma is needed. But the joke precisely appears when you consider “girls” as part of the list and when you take into account that some people don’t use Oxford commas. If you do so, that leads to a 3-items-long list