Serial comma The judge in the case said that 43 of the 50 U.S. states had mandated the use of a serial comma and that both chambers of the federal congress had warned against omitting it, in the words of the U.S. House Legislative Counsel's Manual on Drafting Style, "to prevent[] any misreading that the last item is part of the preceding one"; only 7 states "either do not require or expressly prohibited the use of the serial comma". In the following languages, the serial comma is not the norm and may go against punctuation rules: Serial comma In English language punctuation,
Slovene punctuation unrelated sentences. In electronic writing, a hyphen may be used instead of a dash. A dash usually indicates pausing or abrupt interruption. When used as a sentence closing punctuation mark, the pitch is cadent, thus decreased towards the end of such a sentence, or semi-cadent, indicating a half-finished thought, or there is no change in pitch. A dash can be used instead of a comma to emphasise separation words and clauses. Note that in example 2, unlike in English, the end of the appositive is unmarked in Slovene. It is also used when inserting sentences or including additional information. Sentence