DEAR RICHARD: The Oxford comma, also known as the serial comma, is the comma used before the conjunction in a list of three or more items. For example: “I like to eat apples, bananas, and oranges.” I ...

Your reader's example - "The $1 million was divided between Mary, John and Frank," is a lot different than "The $1 million was split between Mary, John, and Frank." - is completely nonsensical. It ...

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 Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. You know it, and you love it or hate it—it’s the last comma in a simple series, the one before “and ...

I have finally realized that people's beliefs about serial commas are as fierce as people's thoughts on anchovies and reality shows. You either love them or hate them. No amount of arguing will ...

“It was a typical Friday night at Costco in Corona. Customers, including an off-duty Los Angeles police officer, 32-year-old Kenneth French and his parents, waited in line for food samples.” How many ...

THE OXFORD COMMA is a form of punctuation - but it's become a cause of much debate over its usage. So when should you use it and where? We all use commas when writing lists of things. But the Oxford ...

Serial commas made headlines a few weeks ago when a court decided that the absence of a serial comma made a law ambiguous. In this space last week, I begged to differ. But I didn’t have enough space ...

I have finally realized that people's beliefs about serial commas are as fierce as people's thoughts on anchovies and reality shows. You either love them or hate them. No amount of arguing will ...

I'm a longtime copy editor recently retired from the San Francisco Chronicle. The Chronicle doesn't believe in the serial comma, but I personally don't have an opinion about it. (There are more ...