Comma long sentences for clarity; however, this usage is regarded as an error in modern times. The comma and the quotation mark pairing can be used in several ways. In American English, the comma is commonly included inside a quotation mark: In Great Britain and many other parts of the world, punctuation is usually placed within quotation marks only if it is part of what is being quoted or referred to: There is also some difference regarding the use of the serial comma, which is an optional comma placed before the coordinating conjunction in a list of three or more items:
What Is a Nation? and continues to be invoked. Political historian Karl Deutsch, in a quote sometimes mistakenly attributed to Renan, said that a nation is "a group of people united by a mistaken view about the past and a hatred of their neighbours". Benedict Anderson's 1983 work Imagined Communities, which states that a nation is an "imagined political community", argues that Renan contradicts himself when he says French people must have forgotten the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, yet does not explain what it is. In other words, Renan assumes that all his readers will remember the very massacre he says they have forgotten.