“Grubhub to pay $25M for ‘deceptive’ practices against customers, drivers” I’ve been seeing this quite a bit in news headlines. Does the comma replace an “&”? Is it just a weird clickbaity incomplete sentence thing?
It’s a specific type of shorthand you see almost exclusively in news headlines. It means “and” - the sentence reads “Grubhub to pay…against customers and drivers”
Typically you will only see it at the end of a clause. For instance you might see “Gorilla beats chest, drum; musical talent lacking” or “Gorilla beats chest, drum. Musical talent lacking.” And they both more or less mean “Gorilla beats his chest and a drum, but he doesn’t have any talent.” (Though the first example is more correct). However you would not expect to see “Gorilla beats chest, drum, musical talent lacking.” That would mean that the gorilla beats chest their chest, a drum, and they also beat their musical talent which was lacking. It is obviously nonsense
Oh wow that’s fascinating. As soon as I read your comment it clicked that this is more natural as a part of speech than writing.
Yes and it’s one of many used in headlines as part of a common style known as Headlinese.
And
here’s a great blog post i read last year that outlines many rules used to write succinct headlines: https://www.englishnewspod.com/blog/cracking-the-code-understanding-news-headlines-in-english/
