Do you have any questions about punctuation in English? Dot, dot, dot . . . Ellipsis, coming soon . . .But what's up with "dot", "period", and "point"?
. vs. . vs. . dot Used in email addresses and website addresses Example: Please send any questions you have to thelearningword.com (The Learning Word "dot" com). period Used as final punctuation at the end of a sentence. Example: Punctuation is very useful. (<- "period") point Used to signify/mean a decimal Example: 8.5 ("eight-point-five") |
Two (2) standard ways to list 3 or more items using the conjunction "and" or "or"1) Using "The Series Comma"
The series comma is an optional use of a comma in a list of 3 or more items before the conjunction "and" or "or" and before the last item.
Example:
How often did, does, or can something happen? Note that a comma is used to separate all items in the list, including the second to last and the last/final item in the list. * Note the usage of "the" in "the series comma" to talk about / refer to a type of punctuation mark. This usage is similar to the usage of "the" to talk about / refer to species, inventions, and musical instruments.
2) Using "No (Final) Comma":Example:
How often did, does or can something happen? Note that a comma is still used to separate items of the list, except before the final item in the list. What is the difference between using a series comma and using no comma? |