Sometime ago, a foreign reader of my column in The Manila Times raised an eyebrow over my use of the comma before the conjunction “and” in this sentence: “The [author] unravels the various mechanisms and tools of English for combining words and ideas into clear, logical, and engaging writing.”

He commented: “There is a comma after the second to the last adjective, and I noted that you do this all the time. Has some authority changed convention?”

That comma that made him uncomfortable is, of course, the serial comma, which is also called the Oxford comma and the Harvard comma. It’s the comma placed by some writers like me—but avoided by most editors of Philippine newspapers and magazines—immediately before the conjunction “and,” “or,” or “nor” that precedes the final item in a list of three or more items. Admittedly, its use has remained debatable up to this day among writers and editors in various parts of the world.

Here’s how I justified my consistent use of the serial comma to that foreign reader:  

Yes, I use the serial comma all the time as a matter of stylistic choice. I just happen to have imbibed the serial-comma tradition from Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, the Chicago Manual of Style, and H.W. Fowler’s Modern English Usage. However, during my early days as a campus journalist and later as a reporter for a daily newspaper, I would routinely knock off my serial commas because the newspaper I was working with had adopted the no-serial-comma preference of American print media, particularly The New York Times and the Associated Press. If I didn’t knock off those serial commas myself, my editors would do so anyway and sullenly admonish me not to foist my personal preference over the house rule.    

But no, the convention on whether or not to use the serial comma hasn’t changed at all. I’m aware that the no-serial-comma tradition remains a widespread stylistic practice of the mass media in the United Kingdom as well as in Canada, Australia, and South Africa. But personally, I just want to be consistent after making a personal choice based on my own experience with the problems of punctuation over the years.

Of course, the usefulness of the serial comma might not be readily apparent and appreciated when the items in a sentence with a serial list consist only of a single word or two, as in the following sentences:

“She bought some apples, oranges and pears.”

“For the role of Hamlet, the choices are Fred Santos, Tony Cruz, Jimmy Reyes and George Perez.” 

But see what happens when the listed items consist of long phrases with more than four or five words:

“The major businesses in the domestic pet services industry are traditional veterinary services, fancy pet grooming and makeover shops, a wide assortment of animal and bird food, freshwater and marine fish of various kinds and aquarium equipment and supplies for industrial and home use.”

Now, try to figure out where each enumerative item ends and begins in the phrase “freshwater and marine fish of various kinds and aquarium equipment and supplies for industrial and home use.”

In contrast, see how clear and unequivocal the last two items in the list become when we deploy a serial comma between “various kinds” and “aquarium equipment,” as follows:

“The major businesses in the domestic pet services industry are traditional veterinary services, fancy pet grooming and makeover shops, a wide assortment of animal and bird food, freshwater and marine fish of various kinds, and aquarium equipment and supplies for industrial and home use.”

I therefore think it’s best to use a serial comma by default in such situations regardless of how long the phrase for each item is in the enumerative sequence. This way, we can consistently avoid confusing readers and avoid violating their sense of rhythm and balance. (July 4, 2009)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, June 4, 2009 © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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In my previous column [posted here in the Forum last week], I explained to a senior PR executive why I used the singular verb form “has” for the subject “none” in this sentence construction of mine: “I hope none of you still has a problem choosing between ‘bring’ and ‘take’...” He had wondered if I should have used the plural verb form “have” instead in the same way that it’s used in this example that he provided: “I don’t want to be caught saying ‘Do you (still) has?’ We should all ask ‘Do you (still) have?’” 

I explained that he was correct in using the plural verb form “have” in that sentence construction because in contrast to my sentence construction, the subject is clearly the pronoun “you.” This, I pointed out, is because “you”—by some quirk of English grammar—always requires the plural form of the verb regardless of whether it’s meant to be singular or plural. But I added in closing that there’s an even more compelling reason for using “have” in “do”-questions like the one he had supplied. 

That reason is the same I gave to a Hong Kong-based Filipina journalist-teacher who—almost at the same time as the senior PR executive—wrote me seeking an answer to this question posed by an adult Chinese student of hers: “Why do we combine the past and present tenses in sentences like ‘I did not go to school yesterday’? Why isn’t it ‘I did not went to school [instead]’? How do you define that sentence construction? Is there a special term for it, or do we just say ‘It’s that way because that’s the rule’?” 

Here now is the common reason for that usage that baffled both the senior PR executive and the adult Chinese student of the Filipina journalist-teacher: English has three primary helping verbs—“do,” “be,” and “have.” Also called auxiliary verbs, they help the main verb in a sentence form questions, negatives, and some verb tenses. The general rule is that when a helping verb is used in a sentence, it’s the helping verb that takes the tense, while the main verb takes its base form (the infinitive of the verb without the “to,” as in “make” from the infinitive “to make”). 

“Do” in particular is used to (a) indicate questions, (b) indicate the negative of a statement, and (c) emphasize a statement. Here are the particulars of its usage:

(a) “Do” to indicate a question: “Did he take the bus?” “Does he take the bus?” In both the past and present tense, it’s the helping verb “do” that takes the tense. The main verb “take” doesn’t take the tense and remains in its base form. 

Note that when “do” is used as a helping verb to form a question, the main verb always takes its base form—which just happens to look like the plural form when, in fact, it’s really not—regardless of whether the subject (or doer of the action) is singular or plural. In all cases, it’s the helping verb “do” that takes the tense, as in these questions that have plural subjects: “Did they take the bus?” “Do they take the bus?” “Did we take the bus?” “Do we take the bus?” 

(b) “Do” to indicate the negative of a statement: “I did not take the bus.” “I don’t take the bus.” In both these sentences, it’s the helping verb “do” that takes the tense. The main verb “take” doesn’t take the tense and remains in its base form. 

(c) “Do” to emphasize a statement: “I did take the bus.” “I do take the bus.” Here, “do” works to strongly emphasize a response to a particular question like, say, “Did (or “Do”) you really take the bus?” Again, in such cases, it’s the helping verb “do” that takes the tense. The main verb “take” doesn’t take the tense and remains in its base form. (June 20, 2009)

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From the weekly column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in The Manila Times, June 20, 2009 © 2009 by the Manila Times Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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