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 ...

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 ...

While we all slip up from time to time, there are some basic punctuation mistakes you should never make in formal writing. For example, don't confuse "it's" and "its," don't use an apostrophe to ...

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 ...

Today, we’re kicking off a video series devoted to language in all its facets: grammar, syntax, vocabulary, spelling, usage, and punctuation. As much as possible, we’ll use current issues of the ...