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kimberly3g wondered: <<When listing items in a sentence, the rule is to
separate the items with commas. What is the rule on putting a comma before
the conjunction separating the last item in the list? For example, the
following sentence: He asked her to go to the store, buy her groceries, and
cook her dinner.>>
First, don't call it a "rule". This is a matter of style. Older-style
punctuation insisted on the comma, in large part because without it, the
last two items in a list might be misconstrued as referring to the previous
item. The classic (apocryphal?) example is the book dedication: "To my
parents, Ayn Rand and God." Me, I can't see the two of them ever getting
married, let alone having a kid together. <g> More recently, a style known
as "open punctuation" took root, and it advocates eliminating punctuation
wherever possible. The comma before the "and" is considered superfluous,
because misreadings such as the one I just used as an example, are
relatively rare.
My take: Both approaches are somewhat draconian if applied blindly, and rob
the writer of the ability to use the powerful tool of punctuation to express
thoughts more clearly. As a technical writer and editor, I tend to insist on
including the comma before the conjunction simply because this eliminates
all possibility of misunderstanding and because it appears more consistent
to the reader. As a creative writer, I consider myself free to use the
commas as in the book dedication if that approach has a better rhythm or
more clearly expresses my meaning. It's slightly less consistent, but
provides a stylistic form that wouldn't be available if I completely
eschewed open punctuation.
--Geoff Hart, geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada
580 boul. St-Jean
Pointe-Claire, Que., H9R 3J9 Canada
Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur. (Oh! Was I
speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips
out.)--Anonymous
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