Comma Before And

Whether or not you put a comma before and depends on how you’re using and. There’s no single rule that applies to all situations. You usually put a comma before and when it’s connecting two independent clauses. It’s almost always optional to put a comma before and in a list.

Comma Before And in Lists

A lot of people have strong feelings about putting a comma before and in a list. Exactly why this particular quirk of comma usage stirs such passions is hard to say; it’s just one of those things. If you’ve ever heard someone arguing about serial commas or Oxford commas, this is what they were talking about.

Let’s say your dog has so many great qualities that you just have to tell the world. When you list your dog’s qualities, you have to use a comma after each quality you list except the one that comes immediately before and. That comma is optional.

The dog is young, well trained, and good natured.

The dog is young, well trained and good natured.

The sentence is correct with or without the comma before and. (There are a few exceptions that require you to use the Oxford comma in a list, but they are pretty rare.) Just be consistent. Don’t switch back and forth in the same document between using the Oxford comma and not using it.

By the way, this rule only applies to lists of three or more items. You should not use a comma before and if you’re only mentioning two qualities.

The dog is well trained, and good natured.

The dog is well trained and good natured.

This is true for proper names, ordinary nouns, verbs, or anything else.

Sam, and Sarah take excellent care of their pets.

Sam and Sarah take excellent care of their pets.

The dog barks, and plays.

The dog barks and plays.

Comma Before And That Joins Two Independent Clauses

The word and is a conjunction, and when a conjunction joins two independent clauses, you should use a comma with it. The proper place for the comma is before the conjunction.

On Monday we’ll see the Eiffel Tower, and on Tuesday we’ll visit the Louvre.

The sentence above contains two independent clauses (highlighted in green), so it requires a comma before and. (By the way, you can tell they’re independent clauses because each one could stand on its own as a complete sentence.)

Here’s a tip: Remember, when you’re joining two independent clauses, you need both a comma and a conjunction. If you use a comma without a conjunction, you’ll end up with a comma splice.

Let’s look at another example.

It’s cold outside, and I can’t find my coat.

Once again, we have two independent clauses: It’s cold outside plus I can’t find my coat. Therefore, we need a comma before and.

Don’t use a comma before and when one of the clauses it’s connecting is a dependent clause.

Sam tossed the ball, and watched the dog chase it.

The first clause, Sam tossed the ball could stand on its own as a complete sentence, which means it’s an independent clause. But the second clause, watched the dog chase it, can’t stand by itself as a complete sentence. That means it’s a dependent clause, so we should not use a comma before and.

Sam tossed the ball and watched the dog chase it.

Exceptions

But wait! There’s an exception. (Isn’t there always?) When you have two independent clauses joined together by and, most style guides say that it’s OK to leave the comma out as long as the two independent clauses are very short and closely connected. Here’s an example:

Arthur cooked and Melvin cleaned.

It’s not wrong to add a comma before and in the sentence above, but doing so might make the sentence a little choppy.

Want to learn about other ways to use a comma? Check out our general guide to comma usage.

13 Kinds of Grammar Trolls We Love to Hate

How many different rules of grammar and punctuation exist? For every rule, there exists a person eager to publicly expose any rulebreakers. These vigilante defenders of grammatical order are grammar trolls. Here are thirteen types to watch out for.

The Fish Throwers

In the world of writing, a red herring doesn’t refer to a fish. Instead, it’s misleading or distracting information. Fish Throwers are grammar trolls who don’t add anything essential to a conversation. Rather than focusing on the objective of the writing, they distract everyone by criticizing grammar. Who do they think they are? You might ask these trolls, “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

The Drowning Fish Throwers

Closely related to Fish Throwers are the Drowning Fish Throwers. These trolls begin as regular interlocutors on social media. However, sooner or later they get into a debate and begin to lose the argument. Rather than admit defeat, they try to win points by insulting their opponents’ grammar. Unfortunately, they don’t fool anyone.

The Late Bloomers

The discussion is over. Everyone has had their say. But someone out there thinks that it’s still necessary to comment on a post. Who is it? None other than the Late Bloomer, a troll who wants to point out errors from years past. This troll doesn’t realize that everyone else has moved on to new topics. The good news is, no one really reads late arrivals anyway.

The Breeders

How many tweets does the average person publish each day? Breeder trolls multiply tweets by the hour! In their opinion, it’s their sacred duty to point out each and every spelling error with an asterisk and the correct spelling. Confused words prompt them to question the writer: “Did you mean. . .?” Comma splices practically make steam pour from their ears. These highly educated grammar trolls have too much time on their hands. Wouldn’t it be best if they found a more productive hobby?

The Franks

No, Frank isn’t the real first name of this troll. However, it does describe his personality. To be frank is to be honest and straightforward in your speech. Frank trolls tell it like it is. They aren’t trying to hurt you. Actually, they want to help you by pointing out the obvious. The trouble is, sometimes people don’t like the truth and certainly not when it comes in the form of public censure. Frank, might you start a private chat next time?

The Derps

Maybe this troll isn’t dumb, but his comments are. Enough said!

The Jumpy Jurors

Have you ever been wrongly accused of committing a grammar faux pas? Jumpy Jurors base all their judgments on circumstantial evidence. They don’t read the piece carefully. They don’t research to make sure their understanding is correct before making an accusation. Forget innocent until proven guilty. In their eyes, you’re wrong! Don’t bother trying to present evidence because jumpy jurors never listen to reason. And the only opinion that matters to them is their own.

The Broken Mirror Trolls

Broken Mirror Trolls are so busy looking at your grammar that they forget to examine their own. It’s as if they don’t have a spelling checker installed in their word processing program. How dare they critique anyone else with so many mistakes in their own writing? These trolls need to take a good look in a non-broken mirror!

The Bandwagon Riders

Bandwagon Riders don’t know a lot about grammar. However, they have mastered the difference between possessive pronouns, such as your and their, and contractions, such as you’re and they’re. Empowered with a little knowledge that they learned from other trolls, they vocally and viciously identify typos they find online. These trolls are practically unstoppable because each correction they make feeds their egos.

The Passive-Aggressive Trolls

The Passive Aggressive Trolls would never directly correct you. Oh, no! They simply post comments that are suspiciously similar to yours, only with certain changes to punctuation and syntax. These trolls hate Frank, by the way.

The Stalker Trolls

Stalker Trolls are the creepiest of all the grammar trolls. These trolls didn’t stumble upon an error by accident; they searched all your posts methodically and commented on every one. Why are they targeting you? Is it for attention? Are they jealous? Their motives are highly suspect, so your best course of action is to avoid these bad guys.

The Internet Arsonists

These trolls start trouble for one reason and for one reason only. They find it amusing to start trouble and then read the resulting comments. Usually, they don’t even participate after they have made their scorching attacks. For them, the fun lies in watching you burn in anger or shame.

The Fire Squads

It’s perhaps unfair to accuse members of the troll Fire Squad of being trolls themselves; the phrase “anti-troll” might be more apt. These folks look for fires started by Internet Arsonists and douse the flames by posting quotes from reputable sources to resolve the dispute. These are the people you will want to call if you need someone to protect and defend your writing.

Why learn about grammar trolls? According to The Art of War, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” If you really want to take a stand against grammar trolls, use this list to identify their motives. Then, you can decide whether you want to thank your troll, ignore him, or retaliate with a scathing comment of your own.

8 Weird Techniques to Beat Writer’s Block

You’ve already taken ten deep breaths, made coffee, gone on a walk, had a snooze, made more coffee, looked at colossal lists of inspiring ideas, and made another cup of coffee for good measure. It’s time to break out the big guns—er, pens.

Everyone has their way to push through mental blocks and get things done . . . but what are the weirdest strategies? Here are eight odd but useful ways to reset your brain.

1 Shake up your routine.

Write at a different time. Go to a new coffee shop, or sit in the park. Go to a movie in the middle of the day. If you usually write on a computer, try pencils. Or colored pencils!

2 Use your five senses.

Listen to weird music. (Try these Kurdish disco beats. Or this Russian waltz). Go to a bakery and inhale—or if you’re feeling adventurous, stick your head in the dumpster out behind the grocery store. Put your hands on a pineapple. Eat it—or eat a squid tentacle. Watch a movie or TV show you haven’t seen, or better yet, go sit somewhere new and watch the people who go by. Really watch, and make up their stories as you do.

3 Cry your heart out.

On paper, that is. And preferably with words, not tears.

Write down all the things you don’t like about your writing. List the problems with the piece you’re working on. Scribble down what you don’t like about when you can’t write. Tally all your fears, dislikes, complaints, and concerns. Basically, this is your permission to have an uninterrupted gripe fest on paper until you run out of complaints.

The trick: you will run out of complaints. Once you express all that negativity, you’ll find it seeping away. It may not solve your writer’s block completely, but it should make you feel a bit better about picking up the pen (or keyboard) moving forward.

4 Do something you haven’t done since you were a kid.

Grab a jump rope and get the blood flowing. Go to the park and kick a kid off the swings (actually, leave the kids alone. But swinging is fun).

Or do something you’ve never done that kids do: play paintball, or laser tag, do a funny dance, or, if you can recruit some teammates, kickball or capture the flag. Okay, fine—videogames count, but don’t get sucked in. Sporty games are best because the resulting endorphin boost can get you in a better writing mood, but picking an unusual activity of any kind can help your imagination move into spaces you wouldn’t have expected.

5 Start a conversation with a stranger.

If it’s interesting and you can use it as writing fuel, awesome! You win.

If it isn’t, write five ways it could have gone differently. What could you have said to veer the conversation in a certain direction? What if you’d become besties? What if you secretly shared a long-lost uncle? What if you became a duo of crime-fighting, demon-slaying superheroes?

6 Get an imaginary friend.

No stranger handy? No problem.

Create an imaginary person to talk to who loves everything you ever write. If you’re a creative type, you can give your new buddy a name, personality, even pick a photo or a doodle that looks like the person (or llama, or dinosaur) you want to talk to.

If that’s taking it a bit too far, you can still play the imagination game with a nameless invisible buddy. Write out a conversation, or scribble a letter to your friend. If you’re not ready to let them know about your writing issues, invent some challenges for your friend and talk those out. It’s an exercise that will get you out of your negative, blocked headspace, and if your friend is a true fan, it can help you see the good in your writing and move past the blockage.

And don’t worry: being a grown-up with an imaginary friend doesn’t make you crazy. If you start liking your friend more than everyone else around you, then we’ll talk.

7 Create a reward system for yourself, and break it.

Write for thirty minutes (or two pages, or 500 words—set your milestone) and give yourself a prize. Gummy bears. Coffee. Your favorite game app.

Already have a reward system and still have writer’s block? Binge on rewards. Have two ice cream sundaes, or play your Scrabble app for two hours straight. After that, you’ll probably be dying to do something productive.

8 Say hey to the cliché.

If you’re not in the mood to dance around to Kurdish music like a maniac or talk to your invisible bestie like—well, a maniac, go back to the tried-and-true methods of fighting writer’s block. Take a break, or a nap. Make lists of inspiring ideas. Read lists of inspiring ideas. Freewrite until a good idea comes along. Stare at a wall (or preferably, nature). And there’s always coffee.

There’s no surefire way of beating writer’s block, but by being creative in your approach to brain drain, you might find just yourself quicker to get your brain back on track.

The 5 Most Famous Limericks and Their Histories

Edward Lear’s first influential limerick collection, A Book of Nonsense, hit bookstore shelves nearly 200 years ago. Lear didn’t invent the limerick, however; the snappy five-line poems probably sprang to life on the streets and in the taverns of 14th century Britain. Over time, people from all walks of life — children, scholars, drunks, beggars — have delighted in the witty limerick. Here’s a brief history of five of the world’s best-loved limericks.

Hickory Dickory Dock

Hickory Dickory Dock showed up in ”

“Hickory dickory dock.

The mouse ran up the clock.

The clock struck one,

And down he run.

Hickory dickory dock.”

The Man from Nantucket

The Man from Nantucket serves as inspiration for limericks both dirty and pure. Perhaps you’ve even heard a “Rated X” ending to this story-starter. However, the original Nantucket limerick was quite tame. It appeared in Princeton University’s humor magazine, the ”

“There once was a man from Nantucket

Who kept all his cash in a bucket.

But his daughter, named Nan,

Ran away with a man,

And as for the bucket, Nantucket.”

Speaking of Geography . . .

Princeton wasn’t the only publisher of geographically themed limericks. Lear chose Peru as his muse at least once, as shown by the following:

“There was an Old Man of Peru

Who watched his wife making a stew.

But once, by mistake,

In a stove she did bake

That unfortunate Man of Peru.”

Lear’s story of the unlucky Peru gent blazed a path for hundreds of amateur Peru poems to come, many of which are less than chaste. Middle schoolers excel at crafting this kind of literature, from what we hear. Perhaps a Peru limerick or two lingers in your own adolescent memory.

Shakespearean Limerick

Even William Shakespeare practiced what some would call the lowest form of poetry. The following limerick about imbibing spirits appeared in “Othello, Act II, Scene III”:

“And let me the canakin clink, clink.

And let me the canakin clink.

A soldier’s a man.

A life’s but a span.

Why, then, let a soldier drink.”

The Bard also used limericks in “King Lear” and “The Tempest.”

Ogden Nash

Poet Ogden Nash coined the phrase, “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.” Some limerick fans insist he wrote the following limerick about a pelican:

“A wonderful bird is the pelican,

His bill can hold more than his beli-can.

He can take in his beak

Food enough for a week

But I’m damned if I see how the heli-can.”

This clever verse has also been attributed to Dixon Lanier Merritt, a humorist who lived at the same time. Nash died in 1971 and Merritt in 1972.

Crafting a Limerick

Limericks are “closed form” poems that adhere to a strict template. Want to write your own? Follow these guidelines:

• The last word in lines 1, 2, and 5 must rhyme and contain 8-9 syllables each.

• The last word in lines 3 and 4 must rhyme and contain 5-6 syllables each.

Of course, what fun are rules unless they’re broken — or at least bent — every once in a while? Consider this limerick by Zach Weiner of the comic “Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal,” which coherently flows both backward and forward:

“This limerick goes in reverse

Unless I’m remiss

The neat thing is this:

If you start from the bottom-most verse

This limerick’s not any worse.”

Now we challenge you to write your own limerick. It’s fast, easy, and incredibly satisfying. What will yours be about?

7 Irish Proverbs Adopted Into Pop Culture

When Saint Patrick’s Day rolls around, everyone embraces a little Irish spirit. Sporting shamrocks and shillelaghs and wearing a bit o’ green, friends come together to celebrate this most Celtic tradition — and no one celebrates like the Irish!

Given the enthusiasm with which America endorses this holiday, perhaps it’s no surprise that Irish culture has blended so happily with American pop culture. In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day, here are a few examples of Irish wisdom and sayings that have come to be part of modern culture.

May the Road Rise Up to Meet You

Chances are you’ve seen this famous blessing stitched on a pillow at your Irish granny’s house or emblazoned on a plaque hung near her door. This blessing is a nod to the Celtic fondness for using symbols from nature to illustrate God’s relationship with man. Historians believe that invoking imagery, such as a welcome breeze or the warm sun, made the concept of an all-powerful Christian god more easily understood by common folk.

It Is Often That a Person’s Mouth Broke His Nose

Sure, this one plays into the stereotype of an Irishman’s passion for brawling, but this good advice applies to everyone equally. If you don’t want a punch in the nose, don’t shoot off your mouth. Words to live by, Erin go bragh.

A Son Is a Son ‘Til He Takes Him a Wife. A Daughter’s a Daughter All of Her Life

This nugget of wisdom — that any mother of sons will understand — comes from the New Testament in the Gospel of Mark: For this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife…and they shall be as one flesh. It took the Irish, however, to turn it into a snappy little rhyme.

The Older the Fiddle, the Sweeter the Tune

This charming sentiment has several subtle variations, but most recognize it to mean that most things improve over time, or that the best things in life are worth waiting for. This powerful idiom was immortalized in popular culture by Gus McCrae, the feisty hero of Larry McMurtry’s novel “Lonesome Dove.”

Slainte!

Pronounced slahn-sha, this classic Irish toast means “your health.” From the Gaelic word for “safe,” this pithy exclamation stands in for the wordier, “I drink to your good health.” To endear yourself to your Irish friends this St. Patty’s Day, grab a pint of Guinness at your local pub, clink bottles with your mates, and shout out a hearty, “Slainte!”

May the Cat Eat You and the Devil Eat the Cat

The Irish are masters of the elaborate curse, and you’ll really feel the burn if your Celtic acquaintance says this to you. Most save this double-barreled insult for the worst of characters. This one is considered worse than “May you have an itch and no nails to scratch it,” but not quite as bad as “May you be a load for four before the year is out,” with four referring to pall bearers at a funeral.

You’ll Never Plow a Field By Turning It Over in Your Mind

Many cultures have proverbs admonishing one that nothing gets done by just thinking about it. In fact, the Irish like this sentiment so much, they have several variations on the theme. Another popular Irish proverb along the same line is “There’s no use boiling your cabbage twice.”

There’s no denying the Irish have some of the most colorful idioms for imparting everyday folk wisdom and lore. This St. Patrick’s Day, celebrate Irish heritage — even if you can’t claim Irish ancestry — with a liberal sprinkling of common Celtic proverbs.

Do you have a favorite Irish proverb, prayer, or curse?