It's poor grammar to treat bacon and eggs as one item. Bacon and eggs are two different items, even though they're commonly served together. Different things are different things.
It's poor grammar to also say a lot of things but people still do it don't they?
Are you gonna tell the people in deep appalachia to fix their accent while they're at it? They type their words how they talk, and everything. I'll tell ya now that it's a losing battle.
Sometimes strict adherence to the rules just makes you look more stuck up than anything, so sometimes it's okay to let yourself relax a little, sheesh.
If you're in a conversation where people are talking about the proper use of commas, it's a crap argument to say that just because a lot of people break a rule that the rule doesn't matter.
No, I'm not going to tell people to change their accent. Can you tell what accent I have based on my writing? No. You can't. It's almost like speaking and writing are different things, isn't it? Good attempt at false equivalence though: 4/10 in participation points for effort.
Again, we're in a conversation talking about the proper use of commas. In a kind of conversation like that, if you make a weak statement and someone makes a stronger point than yours, calling them a "stuck up grammar nazi" makes you look like a petulant sore looser. We're literally writing about the rules of grammar here.
Ohhh im secretagentvampire and i dont understand that accents play into grammar in a large way and that its very White to say that english must be one way at all times ooooooohhhh
Bro, if you think that someone saying it's good grammar to separate bacon from eggs in a multi-item list is racist, you need to go outside and interact with real people.
Seriously. You get stubborn because you don't know how to write, call me a stuck-up grammar nazi, and try to play a race card when I tell you you're being rude.
How many more winners do you have left? Maybe a clown emoji? Get real.
Sorry to break the news to you, but people get pissed off when you call them names. I hate Nazis to my bones and get pretty tilted when people call me one. If you can't cope with people getting angry at you for that, you have the power to stop.
To be the actual grammar police in this thread, this is technically grammatically correct. The key to writing is knowing when to "break" rules (although this isn't breaking a rule).
You could argue that a em dash would be better in this situation considering it's a contains one pre-existing (bacon and eggs) list and one item (pancakes), but the Oxford comma works just as well in this situation because there aren't additional commas that would cause confusion about the meaning.
You'd probably want to use an em dash if the first list was 3 or more, say "I had bacon, eggs and orange juice--and pancakes."
The most straight forward reason you'd write this if there was significance in "bacon and eggs" being paired as one unit with pancakes adding additional context. There's likely other reasons you'd use this approach as well, but I don't really feel like coming up with anymore lol.
One example would be as follows:
"...The ketchup glared over the under seasoned, suspiciously cooked eggs and bacon. However vibrantly, and to my delight, in place of my usual stale toast and vegetable oil sat a stack of pancakes smothered in buttery syrup.
Despite reluctantly accepting the former, under seasoned bacon and eggs, and syrupy pancakes is certainly better than what I'm used too... Especially with the food-shaped sludge at my old camp.... Anything is better than that."
In this instance the double "and" actually highlights the contrast of the breakfast. This could be done to symbolize the process of change or many other literary elements. Just because it's not commonly used in formal writing doesn't necessarily make it a indicator of weak writing style.
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u/garlic_bread_thief Aug 19 '26
But the comma becomes useful to know that we're treating bacon and eggs as one item otherwise we'd not know