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 ...

“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 ...

This story is free to read because readers choose to support LAist. If you find value in independent local reporting, make a donation to power our newsroom today. Maria Kari is a freelance writer and ...

An icon in the shape of a lightning bolt. Impact Link 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 ...

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 ...

There are a lot of incredibly easy ways to anger people who write for a living: plagiarize their work, create a website of links to their stuff and call it "The Huffington Post" or present them a pie ...

I have spent my career navigating between literature and journalism, trying to learn from both worlds. From my training and experience as an English professor, I carried into the newsroom the power of ...

was a definition of a parliamentarian. There are times when you really don't want a serial comma. For instance, in poetry. A very good example is the line from Robert Frost. The woods are lovely, dark ...

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 ...

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 ...