Hi helpful teacher, Should there be a comma between two main
clauses that are connected by a an "and" - such as: "The stock
market collapsed and Jenna lost all of her money." I found
conflicting rules about this. Is there one rule in British
English and another for American English, or why is there all
the confusion over this? Also....where should the punctuation be
when using foot notes and reference numbers? Before them or
after them? I could find no clear rule on this in many usage
books. Thanks for your time and help, The general rule of thumb
is as follows: If a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor,
but, or, yet) joins two independent cluases, a comma is added
before the conjunction in order to separate the independent
clauses: Independent clause: The stock market collapsed.
Indpendent clause: Jenna lost all of her money. EX: The stock
market collapsed, and Jenna lost all her money. Originally
Posted by Webster.commnet By raelynn in forum General Language
Discussions Last Post: 02-Nov-2006, 00:14 By m