Yeah, but you're using two different "ands" and concatenating their meanings. Looking at your example, you're using "and" as an inclusive disjunction in the question and as an injunction in the first answer, meaning that liking both is an option. That's technically an inappopriate use of the word. "Or" should be used there, not "and". But colloquially, we use "and" anyway.
Counter-example:
A headline reads, "People prefer cats, dogs to spiders".
The colloquial translation of that is, "People prefer cats and dogs to spiders." But it doesn't necessitate the injunction. In fact, it implies the inclusive disjunction, unless the poll had answers like a) cats and dogs b) spiders. The translation was inappropriate, yet the use of the comma was correct.
Scrub says he intended to use the disjunction instead of the injunction. His poll questions support that. His use of "and" is technically incorrect, but it's colloquially acceptable. So too is using a comma to indicate that. It was kind of inconsistent, but not really confusing.
Reply With Quote
argues about this for over a day and calls me philopolemic
