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University Commas
The distinctive 'UCLA comma' and 'Michigan comma' are a long string of commas at the start and end of the sentence respectively.
Title text: The distinctive 'UCLA comma' and 'Michigan comma' are a long string of commas at the start and end of the sentence respectively.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a BOT COMMA - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.

The Oxford comma is a comma between the second-to-last item in a list and the word and. For instance, you might write "red, white, and blue" (with the Oxford comma) or "red, white and blue" (without it). Some style guides such as The Oxford Style Manual recommend using it while others recommend against it, though even those with such a recommendation may suggest its (non-)use in situations where doing so avoids ambiguity arising from the normally recommended choice.

This comic imagines that the other commas in a list of items are not simply generic commas, but are all associated with different universities. This applies both to commas which should always be present in a list, and blatantly erroneous commas which should never be present in a list.

The sentence used, when properly punctuated, reads (with Oxford comma bracketed): "Please buy apples, mac and cheese, milk[,] and bread."

The MIT comma might be a reference to trailing commas sometimes used in programming[1], which would be associated with a highly technical university.

Transcript

Ambox notice.png This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

[A sentence is written in greyed-out text, with the commas in black and each labeled with an arrow]

Please, buy, apples, mac, and, cheese, milk, and, bread,.

[The labels are as follows, in order:]

Harvard comma Yale comma Stanford comma Columbia comma Cambridge comma Cornell comma Oxford comma Princeton comma MIT comma

Caption: The Oxford one is the most famous, but many major universities have their own comma.


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