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I came across this text on a shoe description:

Durable but light, & flexible enough to move with the foot.

I am well aware of the Oxford Comma, so the text would use durable but light, and flexible enough... if it was using and. However, does it also apply to the ampersand & in the referenced text?

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    Arguably, using the ampersand there is poor style (and you want to avoid suggestions of poor style when trying to sell shoes!) So the question hardly arises with this example. In running text, the only situations I can see a valid use of the ampersand are to disambiguate (beef & tomato and cheese) and in names choosing to use it. After a comma, an ampersand looks even more out of place.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Sep 10, 2020 at 10:36
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    Here's a related question about the use of ampersands, which reinforces what Edwin Ashworth says: using an ampersand in that way isn't normal in formal English english.stackexchange.com/questions/3127/…
    – Stuart F
    Commented Sep 10, 2020 at 12:23
  • I think it's a typo myself. I think that the copywriter was trying to say the shoe was durable but also light and flexible and just hit the comma key by accident.
    – BoldBen
    Commented Sep 10, 2020 at 16:28
  • @BoldBen as in durable but (light and flexible)? I don't know if the comma changes the priority of the operators...
    – fedorqui
    Commented Sep 11, 2020 at 7:13
  • @fedorqui I read "light and flexible enough to move with the foot" as a phrase in total. If that was the intention then a comma or semicolon in front of 'but' might have been appropriate but a comma after 'but' would be an error.
    – BoldBen
    Commented Sep 12, 2020 at 10:50

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