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Commas are placed between items in lists, as in They own a cat, a dog, two rabbits, and seven mice. Whether the final conjunction, most frequently and, should be preceded by a comma, called the serial comma, is one of the most disputed linguistic or stylistic questions in English: They served apples, peaches, and bananas. (serial comma used)
The question comma has a comma instead of the dot at the bottom of a question mark, while the exclamation comma has a comma in place of the point at the bottom of an exclamation mark. These were intended for use as question and exclamation marks within a sentence, a function for which normal question and exclamation marks can also be used, but ...
The lack of a comma suggested one meaning, while the omission of the conjunction or before "packing" and the fact that the Maine Legislative Drafting Manual advised against use of the serial comma suggested another. It said "Although authorities on punctuation may differ, when drafting Maine law or rules, don't use a comma between the ...
Punctuation in the English language helps the reader to understand a sentence through visual means other than just the letters of the alphabet. [1] English punctuation has two complementary aspects: phonological punctuation, linked to how the sentence can be read aloud, particularly to pausing; [2] and grammatical punctuation, linked to the structure of the sentence. [3]
The use of thin spaces as separators, [30]: 133 not dots or commas (for example: 20 000 and 1 000 000 for "twenty thousand" and "one million"), has been official policy of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures since 1948 (and reaffirmed in 2003) stating "neither dots nor commas are ever inserted in the spaces between groups", [26]
The comma-free approach is often used with partial quotations: The report observed "a 45% reduction in transmission rate". A comma is required when it would be present in the same construction if none of the material were a quotation: In Margaret Mead's view, "we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities" to enrich our culture.
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Where post-nominal letters are used, they should either be separated from the name by a comma and each set divided by a comma, or no commas should be used at all. If a baronetcy or peerage is held, then commas should always be used for consistency's sake, as the former are separated from the name by a comma.