Comma questions keep cropping up online, and will forever, because the simple punctuation mark serves two different functions, which are blurred in usage. Some are necessary grammatically, some ...

One of my students once told me that when she writes something she always puts a comma wherever she thinks someone should take a breath. She defended this by saying this is what they do in a musical ...

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 ...

There's a well-worn joke that if you call a copy editor anal-retentive, he'll look that up to see if it's hyphenated. It is, I am, and it's my job. Many people can give dignified one-word answers to ...

Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. I have always liked commas, but I seem to be in a shrinking minority. The comma is in retreat, though it is not yet ...

Now that the end of August and beginning of the school year loom, English teachers everywhere are girding their loins and lacing their corsets, readying themselves for the noble challenge of making ...

I am, unapologetically, an over-user of commas. Case in point: I could have written the previous sentence as, "I am an unapologetic over-user of commas," but opted not to. I wished to emphasize just ...

Serial commas made headlines a few weeks ago when a court decided that the absence of a serial comma made a law ambiguous. In this space last week, I begged to differ. But I didn’t have enough space ...

Punctuation. It accompanies our written form of language. It helps us to better understand things when we read them. Let's take this phrase as an example. Without punctuation it is a dangerous ...

For most people, a stray comma isn’t the end of the world. But in some cases, the exact placement of a punctuation mark can cost huge sums of money. We’re bidding farewell to 2018 with some of BBC ...