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,
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