Very useful information, everybody. (Did I use that right?!)

Thanks

We can use a serial comma before 'and' only when we have a list of 3 items or more.

Correct : My house has six living rooms, two bedrooms, two bathrooms and a yard.

Correct : My house has six living rooms, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a yard.

Incorrect : My house has six living rooms, and a yard.

We can also put a comma before "and" in the event the part of the sentence following the "and" could also be it's own sentence.

Correct: I went to the concert, and I had a great time.

Incorrect: I went to the concert, and had a great time.

This is how important commas are:

Let's eat Grandpa!
Let's eat, Grandpa!

Notice the comma changed the sentence from talking about cannibalism to someone demanding their grandpa to eat with them.


Did that change or something? We've ALWAYS been taught that it HAS to be there.

Screw commas. Let's talk semicolons!

I will not overwhelm you with commas; therefore, I will use a very nice semicolon instead.

Pretty much, I mean if you put a comma where it shouldn't it changes the whole meaning of the sentence.

I see this mistake a lot on ATRL and I've started picking it up:

This is a good song, the best one this era.

For Complex Sentences:
If the fragment is the leader, the comma makes it sweeter!

When you have a fragment (subordinating conjunction + independent clause) that begins a sentence, you add a comma after the fragment.

The last two sentences just so happened to be complex, so I went ahead and put the fragment in bold and underlined the subordinating conjunction. The dependent clauses (fragments) are followed by commas.

You could switch it around and have the independent clause lead the sentence. In this case, you don't need the comma.

Examples:
The comma makes it sweeter if the fragment is the leader.
You add a comma after the fragment when you have a fragment that begins a sentence.


This is another rule my English teacher taught me way back, but I don't use it as much since it's a bit subjective.
When you have prepositional phrases that begin a sentence, add a comma if there's five or more words or more than one prepositional phrase.

For example:
Comma: On Tuesday after practice, he went to go eat.
Two prepositional phrases, so you add a comma.
No Comma: On Tuesday I went to the park.
Just one prepositional phrase, no comma is necessary.
Comma: After eating the chicken soup, he went to the bathroom.
Five words, so you do add a comma.

A comma is correct in the following sentence:

Enya, like all of my other favorites, slays your souls.