Re: Proper use of commas in England?

[SANDRA CHARKER <scharker -at- OZEMAIL -dot- COM -dot- AU>]

Katherine Pyle asked about the acceptability of the serial comma in British
English.

I think you'll find that the serial comma is not common British English usage,
but also that it's one person's particular sticking point and that other
differences in usage might bother other people more. As always, a lot depends
on your audience. I once fought through 4 levels of management to use the
British spelling "cheque" in an accounting software package whose target market
was Asia/Pacific (including Oztralia and New Zealand). One reason it was such a
big issue was that some people thought we might have to maintain two English
versions of the product, an UNacceptable cost.

FWIW, Australian usage, which like Canadian primarily follows British
conventions for punctuation and spelling, does not use a comma before 'and'
unless the omission "might either develop ambiguity or cause the last word or
phrase to be read as the object of a preposition in a preceding phrase".

Until I started writing American English professionally, I found text with the
serial comma slightly disconcerting though not UNacceptable. However, I've now
adopted it into my personal style and defend it vigorously on grounds of
consistency, even against my grammatically correct mother (a spiritual cousin
to Bonni Graham's Sister Mary Rose of the grammatical Ruler of Death).

Katherine, please let us know what you decide and why.

Sandra Charker