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startum
Guest
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| Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2004 9:37 pm
Post subject: comma before "and"? |
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(1) I walked to the Dollar store, the pet store, the bookstore, the
grocery store.
or
(2) I walked to the Dollar store, the pet store, the bookstore and the
grocery store.
Should there be a comma before "and."? (2) I am of the militant anti-comma
cult of the Church of the Only True Grammarian, and I always welcome true
agreers. Ignore any internal contradictions. |
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Daniel Hoehr
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 12:59 am
Post subject: Re: comma before "and"? |
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startum wrote:
| Quote: | (1) I walked to the Dollar store, the pet store, the bookstore, the
grocery store.
or
(2) I walked to the Dollar store, the pet store, the bookstore and the
grocery store.
Should there be a comma before "and."? (2) I am of the militant anti-comma
cult of the Church of the Only True Grammarian, and I always welcome true
agreers. Ignore any internal contradictions.
|
AFAIK you can have a comma before "and" if you enumerate more than two
elements.
DH |
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Alan Jones
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 1:45 am
Post subject: Re: comma before "and"? |
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"Daniel Hoehr" <dhoehr.invalid@aedes.Jagonis.com> wrote in message
news:2r3e60F15of32U1@uni-berlin.de...
| Quote: |
startum wrote:
(1) I walked to the Dollar store, the pet store, the bookstore, the
grocery store.
or
(2) I walked to the Dollar store, the pet store, the bookstore and the
grocery store.
Should there be a comma before "and."? (2) I am of the militant
anti-comma
cult of the Church of the Only True Grammarian, and I always welcome true
agreers. Ignore any internal contradictions.
AFAIK you can have a comma before "and" if you enumerate more than two
elements.
|
This is a question often raised here. It is equally acceptable to punctuate
with or without the so-called Harvard or Oxford comma (the one before the
last "and"), unless, as sometimes happens, the structure of the sentence
might lead to confusion without the last comma.
Discussions of this, and of many other matters about which questions are
often posted, can be found at the FAQ <
http://alt-usage-english.org/wheres_the_faq.html >, maintained by another
newsgroup.
Alan Jones |
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George Hardy
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 7:07 pm
Post subject: Re: comma before "and"? |
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"startum" <startum@anonymizer.com> wrote in message news:<JH23d.8222$NC6.4807@newsread1.mlpsca01.us.to.verio.net>...
| Quote: | (1) I walked to the Dollar store, the pet store, the bookstore, the
grocery store.
(2) I walked to the Dollar store, the pet store, the bookstore and the
grocery store.
Should there be a comma before "and."?
|
Yes, but leaving the comma out is not a serious problem.
Consider three shirts. One shirt is red and white; another
is blue; the third is tan. Now put them in a series in a
sentence. You will discover the importance of the last comma.
"And/or" causes similar problems.
GFH |
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P Darby
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 1:49 pm
Post subject: Re: comma before "and"? |
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"Alan Jones" <atj@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:If03d.26333$U04.25902@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
| Quote: |
This is a question often raised here. It is equally acceptable to
punctuate
with or without the so-called Harvard or Oxford comma (the one before the
last "and"), unless, as sometimes happens, the structure of the sentence
might lead to confusion without the last comma.
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But do we really need the comma after the closing parenthesis?
Martyn |
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Alan Jones
Guest
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| Posted: Fri Sep 24, 2004 4:50 pm
Post subject: Re: comma before "and"? |
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"P Darby" <bill@Microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:10l7kbtjc5a9v7b@corp.supernews.com...
| Quote: |
"Alan Jones" <atj@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote in message
news:If03d.26333$U04.25902@fe1.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
This is a question often raised here. It is equally acceptable to
punctuate
with or without the so-called Harvard or Oxford comma (the one before the
last "and"), unless, as sometimes happens, the structure of the sentence
might lead to confusion without the last comma.
But do we really need the comma after the closing parenthesis?
|
I thought about that, and put the comma in deliberately. Without it, the
sentence is breathless, and the adverb clause seems to demand a preceding
comma to separate it from the main clause to which the parenthetical comment
belongs. Is there some rule that the closing parenthesis swallows up any
mark that might otherwise follow it (given that the question mark might be
an exception)? Perhaps I should have re-cast the sentence.
Alan Jones |
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