Commas and lists

[Gene Venable]

P> >I just took an "Effective Business Writing" class from Liz Brubaker,
P> >who used to teach at UCLA, and she said, "ALWAYS use a comma in a
P> >series of three or more." I wanted to call her on it, so I went home
P> >and started checking sources. Older sources (sigh) said it was a
P> >matter of choice, but new sources _all_ said that you should use the
P> >serial comma. Then, after the class, I read _The Lawyer's Guide to
P> >Writing Well_ (1989); the editors couldn't agree.
P>
P> You expected lawyers to _agree_ ? :-)
P>
P> ///Peter
P>
P>
P>

And it's not true that ALL new sources agree. Picking up the grammar
book lying under my chair (The Handbook of Good English, Edward D.
Johnson, Washington Square Press, 1991), I found the following:

"This rule is old-fashioned. Most newspapers and magazines do not use
the comma before and--called the final serial comma--and a few book
publishers recommend not using it. Don't use it if you don't want to."
(Johnson himself prefers the comma)

--Gene

---
ş KWQ/2 1.2e NR ş Please report this to the comma czar.

[JASON GROENJES]

Gene Venable (gen...@kaiwan.com) wrote:
: P> >I just took an "Effective Business Writing" class from Liz Brubaker,

: --Gene

Commakazes go down in flames.

--Roger