ShmoopTube

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Here's your shmoop du jour, does this sentence sound right to you?

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The rock layers of Canyon de Chelly are mostly red

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brown, and yellow sandstone. And here are the possible answers...

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This is a question about lists, and how you keep the parts of a list separated...

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Say hello to commas. Yes, our old friends are back again.

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If we're making a list of three or more things, we want to separate them with a comma

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between each item. But now let's talk about the Oxford comma.

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Like a normal comma, but more educated and snootier.

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Say you're writing a list. You go to the store to buy a drill, an arc

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welder, a hot glue gun, and peaches.

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That list can work with or without a comma between the second-to-last item and

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the conjunction, which will most often be or... or and.

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That comma is called the Oxford comma, and it can be left in or ditched, totally up to you.

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Both ways are acceptable. Let's go through the answers one by one, shall we?

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A says we should just leave it as is. But, there's no comma in

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between red and brown. The first two items in a list will always

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have a comma in between them.

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B is an easy one to cross out, because there aren't any commas at all.

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In a list we always need to separate the different parts.

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D can't be right either, because it doesn't use a coordinating conjunction to put together

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the last two words. And... the only one left is C.

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What do you know... the good old Oxford comma is there, along with a coordinating conjunction

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and a comma between red and brown. Well done, old chap.

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