Jack Goody: What's in a List?

Not to be rude or oversimplify the topic of literacy, but I thought this piece was honestly boring and a bit common sensical. Yea, I get it - lists exist. They are more prevalent in writing communities than oral ones. But how can you judge that statement to even be true? I would argue that lists are a pretty rudementary, and dare I say oral task, that happens to be transcribed into the written word. But I could just as soon rattle of a to do list regardless of whether I was in a literate culture or not. Perhaps, I don't need to write down twenty items to pick up from the grocery store, but instead I need to tell my children what thier chores are that day: plow the fields, sheer the sheep, tend the garden, etc. These are all plausible in oral cultures, so why are lists deemed to be literary by Goody?