This is the first column in Comma Connects, an occasional series detailing the building of Comma, the nonprofit set to assume ownership of The Spokesman-Review in 2026, through the personal stories of ...

The serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma, is the one before “and” in a series of three or more: Herman Melville wrote “Moby-Dick,” “Billy Budd,” and “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” It is also the ...

When linking three or more elements, some writers place a comma before the "and": bell, book, and candle. That's known as the Oxford comma (or serial comma). Other writers don't use that comma: bell, ...

Vampire Weekend posed that question in the opening line of the song “Oxford Comma,” from their 2008 debut album. Eleven years later, everyone on the internet seems to give a fuck—many fucks, a ...

Example: I went to the beach, and I got a sunburn. The two independent clauses in this sentence are “I went to the beach” and “I got a sunburn.” The coordinating conjunction is “and.” Other ...

Words have meaning (including incorrectly used words that can make you look dumb). And so does punctuation: The lack of one Oxford comma in a Maine state law just cost Oakhurst Dairy $5 million in ...

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Surely, Oakhurst Dairy would have done well to heed the immortal words of the '80s hair band Cinderella: "Don't know what you got (till it's gone)." The milk and cream company based in Portland, Maine ...