punctuation - Can a comma be used here?





Should I put a comma before the last item in a list?



In the following example, should there be a comma?



  • John has a car, and a motorbike.

  • John has a car and a motorbike.


Are both correct? What about the first sentence with comma?


Edit:


I have been told that I should use comma to join two complete sentences. So I'm confused if "a motorbike" really considered a complete sentence?



Answer



"John has a car and a motorbike" is a complete sentence. It's correct. The other example is incorrect: "a motorbike" is not a sentence but a noun phrase. Even if you were to write "John has a car and John has a motorbike" or "John has a car and he has a motorbike" (neither of these is good style or normal native-speaker spoken or written English), you wouldn't need a comma after "and" because both are short sentences and there's no problem reading and understanding them without the comma.


[EDIT: When I say that "the other example is incorrect", I mean that the comma isn't needed. The grammar isn't affected. The punctuation, in this case, tells the reader to pause while reading or speaking because "and a motorbike" is an afterthought and requires a slight pause. Contemporary ideas about punctuation would probably indicate an em-dash ("John has a car —— and a motorbike") or an ellipsis ("John has a car ... and a motorbike") to indicate the pause. That's just writing mechanics. It doesn't affect meaning, only timing and intonation.]


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