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Grammar
Course: Grammar > Unit 6
Lesson 1: Introduction to commasPunctuating lists
Learn how to use commas to punctuate a written list of people, things, actions, or events.
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- when I learnt this at school my teacher told not to put a comma before "and"(17 votes)
- Your teacher was right. She (he) was teaching you to punctuate a list according to one of the acceptable and grammatical patterns. The OTHER acceptable and grammatical patter, known as the Oxford comma, is the one that you were NOT being taught. Both are acceptable and grammatical. Just choose which pattern you're going to use, and use it consistently from the beginning to the end of the book you're writing. You may change to the other for your next book, but should be consistent within any single publication.(34 votes)
- why is there comma after pickles?(12 votes)
- it is because when there is and you must put a comma in front of and (depending of the sentence).(6 votes)
- do we need to keep a comma right before "and"(7 votes)
- No, we don't "need" it. It's optional. But, if you're writing an essay and you choose to use it, be consistent all the way to the end of the essay. If you don't use it, be consistent and don't use it all the way to the end of the essay.(8 votes)
- where else can you use commas?(6 votes)
- It appears that you skipped a lesson.
Do this one, it should answer all of your questions.
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/grammar/punctuation-the-comma-and-the-apostrophe/introduction-to-commas/e/meet-the-comma(8 votes)
- When David puts a comma in front of AND in the list,was the word AND something I need to get in the grocery
store? It's unlikely. cuz' and isn't a food..(5 votes)- "And" isn't an object; it's a conjunction. There's a video here, "coordinating conjunctions", that can explain better than I ever could.
Here, "and" is used to show that chocolate is part of the list.(8 votes)
- squid pickles...?(7 votes)
- Do you always need a comma after the last thing on your list?(4 votes)
- No, as far as I know you never use a comma after the sentence ends, you use a period.(7 votes)
- Yeah, what are squid pickles?(7 votes)
- In a manner similar to pickled pigs' feet, pickled eggs, and pickled herring, they are some part of a former animal that has been preserved by being soaked in brine.(0 votes)
- Wow, squid pickles. I wonder if that is a thing(6 votes)
- Whyyyyyyyy squid pickles?!?(6 votes)
Video transcript
- [Voiceover] Hey Paige! - [Voiceover] What's up David? - [Voiceover] Is this right? Okay, so I'm about to
go to the grocery store, and it looks like it says,
"I need to get squid pickles and chocolate at the grocery store." - [Voiceover] Yeah. - [Voiceover] Did you want squid pickles? - [Voiceover] No, I
wanted squid and pickles. - [Voiceover] I must have
written it down wrong, okay. So I think what we need to
do in order to fix this list and avoid confusion like this in the future is using
commas to punctuate a list. 'Cause right now this just
looks like squid pickles, which, I mean probably
delicious, pickled squid. - [Voiceover] Yeah. - [Voiceover] Probably delicious. - [Voiceover] Sure. - [Voiceover] But not what
we were looking to get today. - [Voiceover] Right. - [Voiceover] If we don't want
to get pickled squid today, then we have to put commas in between the elements of the list. - [Voiceover] Right. - [Voiceover] Right, because
this is what commas do. The separate elements of every everything. So let's put in those dividers. I need to get squid,
comma, pickles, comma, and chocolate at the grocery store. - [Voiceover] Exactly. - [Voiceover] Okay, so
we can punctuate a list by separating out nouns, and
I see from the second sentence here, Paige could you
give me a read for that? - [Voiceover] I'm going to
go for a run, read a chapter of my book and go see the
new Colonel Justice movie. - [Voiceover] Oh I hear that's good. So right now it says that,
but it could also just be "I'm going to go for
a run read a chapter of my book, and go see..." you know there's like no-- - [Voiceover] It's a little confusing. - [Voiceover] It's a
little confusing, right? There could be such a thing as a run read. - [Voiceover] There probably is. - [Voiceover] You know, like where you go for a jog while holding a book. - [Voiceover] Sounds difficult. - [Voiceover] And so we can
also use commas in lists to separate not just nouns
like in this first one, but also verb phrases. So I'm going for a run, comma,
read a chapter of my book, comma, and go see the new
Colonel Justice movie. - [Voiceover] Perfect. - [Voiceover] Cool. So that's how you punctuate
a list with commas. - [Voiceover] Yeah, you got it. - [Voiceover] You can learn anything. David out. - [Voiceover] Paige out.