Correct Use of Commas

 

 

 

In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.

-- Strunk and White, The Elements of Style

 

The dropping of the comma before "and" in a series seems to me a surrender of clarity, giving "red, white and blue" the same rhythm as "tea, bread and butter" or "Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy."

-- John Updike in The New Yorker

 

Omitting the serial comma [also known as the Oxford comma] is acceptable in the United States only in newspapers and commercial magazines.

-- Louis Menand, The New Yorker, 6/28/2004

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