Comma certain homonyms. The comma therefore functions as a silent letter in a handful of Greek words, principally distinguishing ("ó,ti", "whatever") from ("óti", "that"). The enumeration or ideographic comma——is used in Chinese, Japanese punctuation, and somewhat in Korean punctuation. In the People's Republic of China and in North/South Korea, this comma ( , , "dùnhào") is usually used only to separate items in lists, while in Japan it is the more common form of comma (, "tōten", "clause mark"). In documents that mix Japanese and Latin scripts, the full-width comma () is used; this is the standard form of comma (
That is often omitted when used to introduce a subordinate clause—""He told me that it is a good read."" could just as easily be ""He told me it is a good read."" Historically, "that" usually followed a comma: "He told me, that it is a good read." Middle Modern English grammarian Joseph Robertson recommended in "On Punctuation" that a comma be used with a conjunction. However, if the subordinate, conjunctional ellipse, null complement, or syntactic pleonasm of "that" is punctuated with a comma, then, in the English grammar, stylistically speaking, it is a comma splice, especially in formal writing. Instead, a