A serial comma is a comma before a coordinating conjunction in a list, commonly used in American English but less so in British English. Its use can disambiguate or cause ambiguity, and personal preference and style guides dictate its use.
A serial comma is a comma placed just before a coordinating conjunction, such as “and” or “or,” in a list. For example, the list “apples, oranges and pears” contains the serial comma while “apples, oranges and pears” does not. Placing a comma before the coordinating conjunction is a particularly common practice in American English, though it is often omitted in newspaper articles. It is used less commonly in British English and is actually considered grammatically incorrect in some non-English languages. This comma is also sometimes referred to as an Oxford comma, Harvard comma, or serial comma.
Using the serial comma can lead to ambiguity in some cases, but can effectively disambiguate in others. Problems of ambiguity usually arise because of similarities to appositive sentences, as it can be difficult to tell for sure whether the writer is adding a new item to the list or adding detail to a previous item. The “my brother, Andy and Dave” list is ambiguous because “Andy” could be the brother’s name or it could be a completely different person. There is, however, no ambiguity when the list is presented as ‘my brother, Andy and Dave’, as commas would be used on either side of ‘Andy’ if the name were, indeed, an appositive.
Omitting the serial comma is not always less ambiguous and can, in fact, even lead to ambiguity in some situations. If the above list changed to “my brothers, Andy and Dave”, the ambiguity now exists because “Andy and Dave” could be the brothers or they could be two people other than the brothers. Phrasing the list as “my brothers, Andy and Dave” resolves this ambiguity since the serial comma indicates that the structure is a list and not an adjunctive sentence. When the use or omission of the serial comma can cause clear ambiguity, it tends to be best to follow the structure which, in fact, does not make the list difficult to understand.
In many cases, the choice to use or omit the serial comma is simply down to personal preference. Some style guides say it’s best to use it while others say it’s best to omit it. When writing for a particular publication, however, it is generally necessary to subscribe to the style guide followed by all authors of the publication. Therefore, it is important to check with style guides or publishers about comma usage before submitting written work for publication.
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