Come, came, come. An irregular verbin its main, past tense, and past participle forms. Comma. The comma punctuation mark (,) has many uses, most of which are changing rapidly in modern usage. Where commas used to be necessary, they are no longer needed where they never appeared, they now sometimes popup. Some speci c kinds of texts have rmer rules about commas than others take into account the audience for which you are writing and its expectations. The basic function of a comma is to separate two or more elements of a sentence. The elements might be clauses or nouns in a list: The poet talked, and the painter listened The student wrote novels, poems, and plays Note that newspaper and some other writing avoid the second comma in lists of three (or the last comma in longer lists that end with something and something. Most standard English accepts as correct lists that include the serial comma (as in the example. The decision about whether to use the last comma in a series will depend on the usage in the group you are addressing plus your own preferences. Whatever choice you make or is dictated to you, it is most important to be consistent All lists should either contain or not contain the last comma in a series. The rst example above of two independent clauses joined by a comma and “and” seems less ambiguous but isn’t. In today’s writing, particularly in ction or any other slightly less formal, more conversational prose, the comma between independent clauses is often omitted, especially if they are short, simple clauses. Just what constitutes short and simple is debatable and subject to individual interpretation, which means that it is not uncommon to nd much longer clauses joined by and or “but” and without a comma. This probably will earn bad grades in a school paper and might cause grumbling or raised eyebrows in a business letter. But such omissions are found more and more commonly in academic publications and quite formal business writing as well. If you are unsure of your audience or the perception of such usages, err on caution’s side and include the comma between independent clauses or in a series. Commas are also used to separate many other sentence elements, which are listed below more or less in order of frequency of occurrence.
