This is the first column in Comma Connects, an occasional series detailing the building of Comma, the nonprofit set to assume ownership of The Spokesman-Review in 2026, through the personal stories of ...

ELON, North Carolina — My favorite bumper sticker I’ve never seen: Commas matter. So I’ve always thought, and do still believe with the passion of one whose knuckles were rapped for grammatical errors ...

Forgetting to use a comma can change everything. It can transform an impatient parent (“I’d like to eat, children”) into a prospective cannibal (I’d like to eat children”). If you aren’t careful, an ...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, it seems, is a little obsessive about commas. According to press reports, he’s been sending out directives to staff that they should follow certain strict guidelines.

“It was a typical Friday night at Costco in Corona. Customers, including an off-duty Los Angeles police officer, 32-year-old Kenneth French and his parents, waited in line for food samples.” How many ...

Obviously, a single newspaper column cannot cover all the language categories that call for commas. The index for “The Little, Brown Handbook” lists 24 categories that are addressed on its pages.

Do you like magic? Commas are the magicians of our language. They can transform the meaning of a sentence! My co-workers and I collect jokes about grammar. We have one that says, "Let's eat Grandma" ...

It’s pronounced “comma-la.” Soft vowels. Equal emphasis on all three syllables. “Like the punctuation mark,” vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris has said of the pronunciation. The senator’s ...