Punctuation centuries meant that a standard system of punctuation was urgently required." The introduction of a standard system of punctuation has also been attributed to the Venetian printers Aldus Manutius and his grandson. They have been credited with popularizing the practice of ending sentences with the colon or full stop, inventing the semicolon, making occasional use of parentheses and creating the modern comma by lowering the virgule. By 1566, Aldus Manutius the Younger was able to state that the main object of punctuation was the clarification of syntax. By the 19th century, punctuation in the western world had evolved "to classify
Serial comma Serial comma In English language punctuation, a serial comma or series comma (also called an Oxford comma or a Harvard comma) is a comma placed immediately before the coordinating conjunction (usually "and" or "or") in a series of three or more terms. For example, a list of three countries might be punctuated either as "France, Italy,and Spain" (with the serial comma), or as "France, Italyand Spain" (without the serial comma). Opinions among writers and editors differ on whether to use the serial comma, and usage also differs somewhat between regional varieties of English. In American English, not using a serial