When you're writing or typing and begin to list items in consecutive order, do you add a comma prior to the conjunction before the final item? Or not? The inclusion of that final comma is a great ...

It’s National Punctuation Day tomorrow. Please contain your excitement. I wrote about it in 2008 and in 2009, apparently skipping it last year. Since one of Professor Stacy Spaulding’s new media ...

Here’s an interesting question posed to me recently: Which of the following sentences is punctuated correctly? Look for fresh basil at your local grocery store, and, if it isn’t available, tell the ...

In school, I was taught about conjunctions (e.g. or and and) and the role they play in sentence structure – they are linking words. They do what they say on the tin: con-(i.e. with) and -junction (i.e ...

People who care about grammar love the serial comma, aka the Oxford or Harvard comma. They love it because they were instructed to use it in school, and they love it because it supposedly reduces ...

Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. The little word “and,” we probably all know, is a conjunction. It connects things: “She is tall and thin” means she is ...

SEVERAL months ago I w as surprised to see Arnold Zwicky, a linguist, use a comma splice. A few commenters took me to task for being over-picky. The question came up again in the comments several days ...