Hi, Ardith Hinton!
I read your message from 27.06.2024 03:06
AK>> The comma before "and" is just an unnecessary thing that provides
AK>> anything to make the understanding more clear.
AH> It's a matter of style, not an absolute requirement, and some
AH> people recommend using it only when it's needed to avoid confusion:
AH> Through the window I saw John, a basketball player and a friend of
AH> mine.
Are there three of them? ;-)
For me, this is not a list, but a sentence with the additional information,
separated with a comma from the main clause. I believe that a _good_ list must
consists of homogeneous items. Nobody can prohibit you, of course, to add to the
list also a puddle, car, dog and a cat, but I think it will be rather a word
game.
If we have a good list (of names, for instance) we would have:
Through the window I saw John, Peter and Paul, who staggered out from the pub.
AH> What is this friend's name, and is he a basketball player? I have
AH> no idea. I found the example in Wikipedia... I didn't personally
AH> invent it.
As we say in Russia "Be simpler and people appreciate it". ;)
AH> I asked for coffee with a breakfast of pancakes, bacon & eggs, hot buttered
AH> toast and hash brown potatoes.
Yeah, no comma before potatoes. ;)
AH> At 5WPM I can type an added comma without having to fret about
AH> whether someone from ElseWhere will think I buttered the hash
AH> browns *after* they were cooked. For me it's easier to use the
AH> Oxford comma routinely in such a list than to go into detail about
AH> why buttering such things on the plate may not work.
Yes, I agreed it is not important in chats. It maybe there are some doubts when
you translate something. Old Everett Hertenstein taught me that the main thing
is to be consistent. ;-)
AH> If Denis asks I'll do the latter, but other folks may not care. :-Q
AH> BTW, here's a joke Dallas found shortly before your message
AH> arrived:
AH> I like cooking my family and my pets. -- commas save lives
The comma after "cooking" is a holy one, of course. ;) But not the one which
could be before "my pets".
AK>> With the same success you can put "and" before every comma in the
AK>> list. ;-)
AH> I suppose you could in many cases. But as Anton says, in English it
AH> is generally considered desirable to avoid unnecessary verbiage....
AH> [chuckle].
An unnecessary comma before "and" is good mainly because nobody pays any
attention to it. ;-)
Bye, Ardith!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2024
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* Origin: news://news.fidonet.fi (2:221/6.0)
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