The comma is a punctuation character that is placed on the baseline and looks similar to a single quotation mark.
The comma is a punctuation character that is placed on the baseline and looks similar to a single quotation mark. If following a word, it is placed immediately afterwards, but a space follows it when it is followed by another word. If used to set off a word or a phrase (see below), it is omitted when, if put, it would be the first or last character of the sentence.
In English, it is used for the following purposes:
- to separate clauses
- to separate items in a list, with the exception of, possibly, the last two items
- to set off conjunctive adverbs
- to set off parenthetical phrases
- between adjectives that equally modify the noun
- before quotes, when the quote is the object of the verb
- between the day and the year in a date, if the date is written using the American English format
- to set off the larger region area in a geographic place
- between every three digits in large numbers
- after the last name of a person, in which case it is immediately followed by the first name of that person
- to indicate a location where a verb has been removed
- to set off a noun or pronoun that interrupts the flow of the sentence and speaks directly to a reader
