{"id":18704,"date":"2026-05-16T11:36:28","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T18:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/?p=18704"},"modified":"2026-05-17T00:00:59","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T07:00:59","slug":"serial-comma-and-ampersand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/2026\/05\/16\/serial-comma-and-ampersand\/","title":{"rendered":"Serial comma and ampersand"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>Today, I saw multiple people say that even if you use a serial comma before <i>and<\/i>, you shouldn\u2019t use one before an ampersand. That is, even if you write <i>A, B, and C<\/i>, you should write <i>A, B & C<\/i>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>I had never encountered that idea before, and I was very dubious about it. But I checked <cite>Chicago<\/cite>, and found out that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagomanualofstyle.org\/qanda\/data\/faq\/topics\/Commas\/faq0103.html\">they agree<\/a>:<\/p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p>Though the serial comma has officially been Chicago style since 1906 (when the first edition of the <cite>Manual<\/cite> was published), we prefer to omit it before an ampersand (see <cite>CMOS<\/cite> 6.21). The serial comma\u2014the one before the conjunction in a series of three or more (it\u2019s also known as the Oxford comma)\u2014suggests thoroughness (some consider it to be unnecessary); the ampersand, by contrast, is an abbreviation (derived from the Latin word <i>et<\/i>, or \u201cand\u201d). The two together, then, make for an odd pairing of the thorough and the minimal. Either remove the comma or spell out the word \u201cand.\u201d<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n<p>I still strongly disagree. To me, the serial comma isn\u2019t about thoroughness or maximalism or formality; to me, it\u2019s a way to separate items. (When I read <i>A, B and C<\/i>, it feels to me like that\u2019s grouping B and C together.) So to me, using a comma before <i>and<\/i> makes sense regardless of how <i>and<\/i> is written.<\/p>\r\n\r\n<p>But still, I\u2019m fascinated to come across this rule that I\u2019ve never heard of before but that\u2019s well-established and endorsed by a major style guide.<\/p>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-punctuation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18704"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18718,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18704\/revisions\/18718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/words\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}