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 (
Serial comma can also be written in other ways that eliminate the ambiguity without introducing the serial comma, such as by changing the word order or by using other punctuation, or none, to introduce or delimit them (though the emphasis may thereby be changed): An example collected by Nielsen Hayden was found in a newspaper account of a documentary about Merle Haggard: A serial comma following "Kris Kristofferson" would help prevent this being understood as Kris Kristofferson and Robert Duvall being the ex-wives in question. Another example is: It is unclear whether the eggs are being grouped with the bacon or the