Q: Years (and years!) ago when I learned grammar and usage from the Sisters of St. Joseph in a Brooklyn, N.Y., grammar school, a series of nouns used a comma to separate the nouns until the last one, ...

Contrary to popular belief, commas don't just signify pauses in a sentence. In fact, precise rules govern when to use this punctuation mark. When followed, they lay the groundwork for clear written ...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, it seems, is a little obsessive about commas. According to press reports, he’s been sending out directives to staff that they should follow certain strict guidelines.

A student in my “History of the English Language” course stopped me after class a few weeks ago and asked, “I was just wondering—how do you feel about the Oxford comma?” She could have asked about the ...

I'm not a fan of excessive commas, but I find myself using them in a manner that seems somewhat excessive. But, I try to only use them where appropriate. For example ...

Liz in Newport Beach, Calif., posed a good question about commas. Consider the following two sentences. "Days are usually great, but, when they aren't great, they still pass in 24 hours." "Every word ...

People who care about grammar love the serial comma, aka the Oxford or Harvard comma. They love it because they were instructed to use it in school, and they love it because it supposedly reduces ...

Iran, North Korea, Syria and … commas. While Mike Pompeo is focused on a number of key geopolitical concerns, an email obtained by CNN suggests that the secretary of state also appears to have had it, ...

There’s an age-old debate about whether grammatical rules are prescriptive or descriptive. “Myself and her went to dinner”; “He was very kind to my wife and I”; “definately”; “to all intensive ...

Where text message punctuation is merely good grammar for older people, Gen Z sees all kinds of hidden meanings, say linguists India McTaggart is a Royal and Entertainment Correspondent for The ...