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Serial comma

The serial comma (also referred to as the Oxford comma or Harvard comma) is a comma placed after the penultimate term in a list (just before the conjunction) when writing out three or more terms. For example, a list of three countries might be punctuated with the serial comma as "France, Italy, and Spain" or without it as "France, Italy and Spain".

History, Recommendations by English style guides & Ambiguity

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Overview

History

Arguments for and against

Ambiguity

Recommendations by English style guides

Other languages

Individual disputes

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Map overview Semantic statistics

Serial comma

Nodes86
Edges85
Triples83
Avg. degree1.98
Density0.023256
Components1

How this topic connects Entity context

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Serial comma

Top relations

related to Maine labor dispute · 14
Serial comma → Although, Barron, David, First Circuit, For, In, In O'Connor, It, Maine, Maine Legislative Drafting Manual, Oakhurst Dairy, On, The, Truck
related to history · 13
Serial comma → Aldus Manutius, Compositors, Etymologically, Greek, Hart, Hart's Rules, Horace Hart, Italian, Manutius's, Oxford University Press, Peter Sutcliffe, Readers, The
related to British 50p Brexit coin · 8
Serial comma → Americanism, Brexit, English, In, January, Peace, Philip Pullman, United Kingdom
related to Recommendations by English style guides · 8
Serial comma → Canada, I'll, In Australia, Journalists, Lynne Truss, Omitting, Oxford, There
see also · 6
Serial comma → Oxford, Oxford Comma, Roger Casement, Syndeton, Vampire Weekend, Who
related to Ambiguity · 4
Serial comma → Consider, Mother Teresa, Omitting, There
related to Arguments for and against · 4
Serial comma → Common, It, Its, The
related to Japanese · 4
Serial comma → Although, In Japanese, Japanese, The
related to Dutch · 3
Serial comma → Belgian Dutch, In, Netherlandic
related to Spanish · 3
Serial comma → Spanish, The, The Royal Spanish Academy

Important terminology Word statistics

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Important terminology

comma serial ambiguity oregon use maid betty cook went style list also guides whether three writing oxford used one read

Entity relationships Subject–Predicate–Object triples

SubjectPredicateObjectConfidenceSrc
the APA styleinstance ofAcademic and legal style guides0.80text
The Chicago Manual of Styleinstance ofAcademic and legal style guides0.80text
Garner's Modern American Usageinstance ofAcademic and legal style guides0.80text
Strunkinstance ofAcademic and legal style guides0.80text
White's The Elements of Styleinstance ofAcademic and legal style guides0.80text
and the U.Sinstance ofAcademic and legal style guides0.80text
the Associated Press Stylebookinstance ofNewspaper stylebooks0.80text
The New York Times Style Bookinstance ofNewspaper stylebooks0.80text
and The Canadian Press stylebook typically recommend against itinstance ofNewspaper stylebooks0.80text
this.These formsinstance ofboth styles can be ambiguous in cases0.80text
and or orinstance ofwhimsicality They may also be linked by coordinating conjunctions0.80text
Serial commarelated to AmbiguityOmitting0.60section

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    Min side: 3
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