The serial comma (also known as the Oxford comma or Harvard comma) is the comma used immediately before a grammatical conjunction (nearly always and or or; sometimes nor) that precedes the last item in a list of three or more items. The phrase “Portugal, Spain, and France”, for example, is written with the serial comma, while “Portugal, Spain and France”, identical in meaning, is written without it.[1][2][3]
ABOUT VAMPIRE WEEKEND:[In 2007, their hit “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” was ranked 67th on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Best Songs of the year as they toured the United Kingdom with The Shins.[7] They were declared “The Year’s Best New Band” in the March 2008 issue of Spin magazine and were the first band to ever be shot for the cover of the magazine before releasing their debut CD.[8]
There is no consensus among writers or editors on the use of the serial comma. It is closer to being standard use in American English than it is in British English[4] (see extended treatment of this below, including a survey of published recommendations in Usage and subsequent sections). In Bulgarian, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French,[5] German, Hebrew, Italian,[6] Norwegian, Polish,[7] Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian and Spanish[8] the serial comma is not normally used but may be where this aids clarity or prosody.