“Improves focus”

From the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend episode “I’m So Happy That Josh Is So Happy!” (November 23, 2015). Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom) has taken a pill she found on a therapist’s bathroom floor. It’s a pill for ADD that “improves focus”— she knows that because she looked online. And now she sits at her laptop to do some lawyering:

“Let’s get to work. All right, let’s see this presentation. What is Karen doing? She put two spaces after a period? What is this, 1997? Well, those have to go. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s kicking in right now. Okay — and what are these, Oxford commas? Well, those have to go too. I just gotta, I just gotta edit this whole thing before I even start. Karen!”

I think this monologue speaks for itself on the subject of “focus.” And though Karen’s wrong about spacing, she’s smart about commas: those Oxford (serial) commas should stay in. See also Stephen Colbert and Vampire Weekend.

Thanks, Rachel, for recommending this series. (Our Rachel, not Rachel Bloom.)

A related post
How to punctuate a sentence

[My transcription.]