Perhaps, but it would continue to allow the poster their own choice of words .. which I think is important.

No... it's less clear too. The verb is never isolated from the rest of the sentence by a comma, but a list of nouns will be isolated by commas, even if the conjunction is missing for brevity in a title. Separating "returns" like that makes it appear even more to be a noun, which is the thing that the original comment was confused by. Correct interpretation of the title relies on the reader realizing that it is a verb in this context, and the comma does not help with that.

Given the ongoing mess with the AMD 7900 XTX GPU vapor chambers, I initially interpreted the title to mean there was some problem with AMD laptops, so System76 was offering returns only for those laptops with AMD chips. That is not the case.

I ignored your point… about adding a random comma to preserve the original title’s word choice? I’m confused how that’s relevant. If the comma makes things less clear to the majority of readers, then it would not be an improvement.

Based on the distribution of downvotes and upvotes between your original comment and my original comment (which is at +13), I think most people on this post overwhelmingly agreed with me, for whatever that is worth. Good communication requires figuring out what works for most people, not just one person, and short of running some focus group testing, the vote distribution is the best available proxy for that here, in my opinion.

> It could be improved.

Communication can always be improved, and I’m always trying. I agree there is still room for improvement. I’m sorry if it isn’t good enough yet.

I think clear communication is important, and I initially tried to avoid digging into grammar until they doubled down on a weird use of a comma.

There are two verbs in your example, so it’s simply not a relevant example since the second verb is forming a separate sentence. It’s just connected with a comma in order to inform the reader that it is reusing the context of the previous sentence. In this specific example, that really makes it a broken sentence fragment, but it is often acceptable if it is being done poetically, which it arguably is there.

I phrased my previous comment carefully. The verb is never isolated from the rest of the sentence by a comma. “Posts” is the complete sentence; it just has an implicit subject and object.

It’s possible there are nuanced counterexamples somewhere that I’m somehow overlooking, but none of them are relevant to whether putting a comma between “laptop” and “returns” would make the title clearer.

But, if you’d like to try again with only a single verb…

You're also incorrect.

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"Rule of thumb: a comma indicates a pause in speech." [1]

[1] https://site.uit.no/english/punctuation/rules-for-comma-usag...

That rule of thumb doesn’t really contradict anything I’ve said, and a rule of thumb is not to be relied upon anyways. If we want to consider the rule of thumb, just extend the sentence. If the pause would be there, then it would also be there even if the sentence were longer. “System76 AMD-Only Laptop Returns to Market”. I certainly wouldn’t pause between “laptop” and “returns”. But again, a rule of thumb is a general guideline, and it will be wrong in many cases.

The real, specific rules that are listed after also don’t contradict anything I’ve said, as far as I can see. Can you please point to the specific rule on that page that says a comma would be useful here?

A comma does not fix this title.

I’m not claiming to be the single best person in the world at English grammar, but I have tried my best to learn a thing or two about it over the years. I have also tried to clearly explain the relevant grammar to the best of my ability. I have apparently failed to explain it well enough, so I’m done here, since trying more won’t make a difference for such an irrelevant diversion from the main topic.

First: Read the original title out loud.

Next: Read the original title (including the additional comma) out loud, pausing slightly in place of the comma.

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Which makes _more_ sense?

The one without the comma, absolutely.

You're only lying to yourself.

> I think clear communication is important, and I initially tried to avoid digging into grammar until they doubled down on a weird use of a comma.

You're going to upset people if you don't consider their opinions.

But you said "never"!

Too nuanced and pedantic, understood.

In headlinese, your sentence would be short for "Person holds excessively strict ideas about English grammar and English posts". Not a great example to make your point.