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
Why don’t you try one of the 37 threads with the word “Opal” in the subject line?
Repeat after me: our search engine is our best friend.
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.