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Some people use the Oxford comma (also known as the Harvard or serial comma). This is a comma before "and" or "or" at the end of a series, regardless of whether it is needed for clarification purposes. For example: X, Y, and Z (with an Oxford comma) X, Y and Z (without an Oxford comma)
The serial comma does not eliminate all confusion. Consider the following sentence: I thank my mother, Anne Smith, and Thomas. This could mean either my mother and Anne Smith and Thomas (three people) or my mother, who is Anne Smith; and Thomas (two people). This sentence might be recast as "my mother (Anne Smith) and Thomas" for clarity.
The question comma has a comma instead of the dot at the bottom of a question mark, while the exclamation comma has a comma in place of the point at the bottom of an exclamation mark. These were intended for use as question and exclamation marks within a sentence, a function for which normal question and exclamation marks can also be used, but ...
Many commas are grammatically required, and many that aren't are stylistically preferred in formal writing. Furthermore, some low- register uses of commas are incorrect. Insertion or removal of a single comma can often totally change the meaning of a sentence, while in other cases having virtually no effect at all.
For copyeditors, the 2nd edition of the Copyeditor's Handbook: A Guide for Book Publishing and Corporate Communications, published in 2006, states that users should "delete any extra word spacing before or after punctuation marks" and that "The conventions are: One space follows a sentence-ending punctuation mark."
A comma between clauses may change the connotation, reducing or eliminating ambiguity. In the following examples, the thing in the first sentence that is very relaxing is the cool day, whereas in the second sentence it is the walk, since the introduction of commas makes "on a cool day" parenthetical: