Ever heard of the serial comma?
I know that this may seem strange but I’ve just had an e-mail from someone in the USA asking my view on the serial comma. This arises from my web page “How To Use Punctuation”.
So, what is the serial comma? The serial comma is the comma used immediately before a grammatical conjunction (nearly always ‘and’ or ‘or’) that precedes the last item in a list of three or more items. For example: ‘one, two, and three’.
It doesn’t feature in my advice on punctuation because I don’t support it’s use on the grounds that it is redundant. It’s not up there with my views on whether there is a God, but I thought that you’d like to know ….
January 24th, 2007 at 11:53 pm
I tell my students that it is optional, but most of them use it. Perhaps it is one of those conventions that is only popular in America? Such as using articles before words like hospital (the hospital) or university (the university)?
January 25th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Your advice is sensible, Dana.
In her book “Eats, Shoots And Leaves” [my review here], Lynne Truss writes: “There are people who embrace the Oxford comma and people who don’t, and I’ll just say this: never get between these people when drink has been taken”.
January 25th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I LOVE that book. We are thinking about making it a summer reading text. The only thing I worry about is that there are so many differences between British and American English, and those changes are not reflected in the American edition of the book, which throws many of my students off. For example, British convention dictates that the punctuation goes outside the quotation marks, whereas American convention dictates that it goes inside except in rare cases. I can hold these two differing concepts in my head, but my students have trouble with that.
January 26th, 2007 at 10:45 am
I had never gien any thought to the serial comma until this posting; like you, I thought it redundant. However, yesterday I found myself using them in the context of writing something for someone else to read aloud, when the use is to indicate a slight pause to the reader and thus separate the last two items in the list more definately.
On a different grammatical subject, when did everyone start using the awful term “two time” instead of “twice”? I’ve noticed it a lot lately, and as someone who even uses “thrice” in conversation occasionally, it grates terribly.
January 26th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Hoepfully, Janet, one of the benefits of this blog is that it encourages readers to think about a whole variety of subjects, some less familiar than others.
My own view of the serial comma is that it should be used when it genuinely aids clarification or delivery, but otherwise it is simply not necessary.