I have been reading the board for awhile now, and only recently started posting. I thought that the reason for the 3. Hi Opal was because Opal disliked lists with only 2 items. I have noticed people putting this #3 in lists with more than three items. My general question is did the original joke morph into a new #3 in every list, or are all the new posters misunderstanding the joke?
Thanks,
Ellen
Er, Coldfire, this is actually a different question.** Given the answer found in those 37 other threads, why do people use Hi Opal! in lists of <i>more</i> than two items?**
–John
Don’t worry, the anwer’s in there somewhere.
And the answer is (since Coldy doesn’t seem to want to actually do the honors) that it’s a misunderstanding of the joke. “Hi Opal” is only appropriate as the final item in a list of 3, not number 3 in a list of more items.
So:
1: There are lots of threads on this subject.
2: The use of “Hi Opal!” in a list of more than three elements is a misunderstanding of the joke.
3: Hi Opal!
I had thought that it was a misunderstanding of the joke, but I had been seeing it ALOT lately and I thought I had missed something.
Thanks for the answers.
For the record:
The practice of acknowledging Opal as the third point in a list started way back when the original idea was still fresh in everyone’s (everyone on the AOL/SDMB, that is) mind and was a deliberate joke, twisting Opal’s point.
Folks now might be misunderstanding the point, but I would say that the joke has simply morphed to a new level.
I myself do the “3.Hi Opal” thing outside of conventional usage simply to avoid being bankrupted by the outrageous copyright charges (sheesh!).
Seriously, I suspect it’s just a joke that’s morphed beyond it’s original perimeters.