Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Commas -- How many are TOO many?

Many of you have probably heard of the Oxford comma in school and learned that it was a way to combine a list of three or more items, such as:


I like dogs, horses, and spiders.


However, this sentence is also correct:


I like dogs, horses and spiders. 


Sometimes, commas are helpful to avoid making a connection between the wrong words, like in this sentence:


I am so grateful to my friends, the President and Steve.



In this example, the reader may confuse the "President and Steve" as the appositive of the word "friends." Appositives are nouns or pronouns that come before or after another noun to describe it further. Basically, you may think the author's close friend is the President, when they really meant to show gratitude to their friends, the President, and Steve, separately. 




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The important thing to remember is that a comma and the conjunction "and" are interchangeable, so figure out which one works best for that particular sentence. 💮



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