Quote:
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Originally Posted by moo
When using "and" or "or" at the end of a series (items, etc.), is it proper to use a comma immediately preceeding, or does it matter?
Without preceeding comma:
You may use hammers, rocks, clubs or sticks.
I found hammers, rocks, clubs and sticks.
I see it written both ways. 
Thanks, moo |
From an OZZIE perspective (we have our own language too) the above gets my vote
In the end, all punctuation is there to help meaning. Sometimes, in some lists, you might want to use the comma after "and" to prevent ambiguity.
On the question of commas in or out of the " " I tend to agree too that they should be out.
I think this is changing. When we wrote with pens it was easy to put the comma inside the quotation marks. Now with computers this is difficult so it often goes outside. Does it really matter if the sense is getting across?
I don't use text messaging but my wife, an English teacher, takes forever to capitalise and puncuate text messages.(Sometimes some punctuation is not even enabled)
I think she is cognitivly incapable of using the current Text Message Lingo.
It is interesting that it is being taught in Victorian and NZ schools
