English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

The present paper traces the historical development of the serial comma in the history of English until its eventual decline over the course of the twentieth century. The  serial comma  (also known as the  Oxford comma  or  Harvard comma ) refers to the existence of a pause immediately before the conjunctions  and / or  (and sometimes  nor ) in a series of three or more elements in a clause. Although the use of this mark of punctuation is no longer a desideratum in Present-day British English, it was a disseminated practice among seventeenth-, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century writers. In light of this, this work has been conceived with the following objectives: (a) to study the use and distribution of the serial comma in the period 1500–1999; (b) to evaluate its distribution in the two types of writing, i.e. handwriting and printing, and the level of variation across text types; and (c) to ascertain whether the number of elements in the series participates in its deployment. The source of evidence comes from  The Málaga Corpus of Early English Scientific Prose  (MCEESP), the corpus of  Early English Medical Writing  (CEEM) and  A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers  (ARCHER 3.2).

‘A very pleasant, safe, and effectual medicine’: The serial comma in the history of English