Ad
related to: reasons to use commas
Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Punctuation is important, and the comma exists for a reason. Several reasons, actually. If someone has added or removed a comma in an article on your watchlist, do not simply reflexively revert the change, or edit war over it. Many commas are grammatically required, and many that aren't are stylistically preferred in formal writing.
The enumeration or ideographic comma (U+3001 、 IDEOGRAPHIC COMMA) is used in Chinese, [37]: 20 Japanese punctuation, and somewhat in Korean punctuation. In China and Korea, this comma ( 顿号 ; 頓號 ; dùnhào ) is usually only used to separate items in lists, while it is the more common form of comma in Japan ( 読点 , tōten , lit.
Some people use the Oxford comma (also known as the Harvard or serial comma). This is a comma before "and" or "or" at the end of a series, regardless of whether it is needed for clarification purposes. For example: X, Y, and Z (with an Oxford comma) X, Y and Z (without an Oxford comma)
The 1931 grammar of Volapük uses the comma as its decimal separator but, somewhat unusually, the middle dot as its thousands separator (12·345·678,90123). [ 22 ] In 1958, disputes between European and American delegates over the correct representation of the decimal separator nearly stalled the development of the ALGOL computer programming ...
For commonality reasons, use US by default when abbreviating, but retain U.S. in American or Canadian English articles in which it is already established, unless there is a good reason to change it. Because use of periods for abbreviations and acronyms should be consistent within any given article, use US in an article with other country ...
"To separate the elements (words, phrases, clauses) of a simple series of more than 2 elements, including a comma before the closing 'and' or 'or' (the so-called serial comma). Routine use of the serial comma helps to prevent ambiguity." Garner's Modern English Usage, 4th edition (Oxford University Press, 2016), "Punctuation," § D, "Comma", p. 748
Get AOL Mail for FREE! Manage your email like never before with travel, photo & document views. Personalize your inbox with themes & tabs. You've Got Mail!
We use points as decimal separators also, and we use commas as a thousands separator too, although that might be confusing in other languages. I also see no good reason to prohibit using an asterisk for multiplication; it seems well-understood, easy to type, unambiguous, and common in practice.
Ad
related to: reasons to use commas