When linking three or more elements, some writers place a comma before the "and": bell, book, and candle. That's known as the Oxford comma (or serial comma). Other writers don't use that comma: bell, ...

A few weeks ago, I mentioned in this space that serial commas, also called Oxford commas, are a matter of style. So either “red, white and blue” or “red, white, and blue” can be correct depending on ...

Example: I went to the beach, and I got a sunburn. The two independent clauses in this sentence are “I went to the beach” and “I got a sunburn.” The coordinating conjunction is “and.” Other ...

Writers frequently debate whether or not the Oxford comma is a necessary piece of punctuation. In an unlikely turn of events, a group of Maine dairy drivers have yielded the answer: Yes, it is. A case ...