11 Plus Exams Forum

Hi All,
I have a question Comma and co-ordinating conjunctions in British English.

Do we have to use a comma before these conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so?

which one is correct?

I had a terrible cold, but still went to school.

[or]

I had a terrible cold but still went to school.




Thanks

I would as it separates the clauses.
Does this help?
https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/c ... 04c5efb44f" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Thank you yoyo.


I am looking at the bbc grammar website below

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z ... es/z9wvqhv" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

there is no comma used before coordinating conjunctions.

It is very confusing if a comma is mandatory before coordinating conjunctions and, but, for, nor, yet, or, so.

I hope someone will clarify the confusion!

I would go by Bitesize tbh.
It us all very confusing, not the least because the terminology changes constantly.

Please don’t worry too much about this. What matters is meaning, not random rules and terminology.

I found the following sentence on a page I’ll link to below:

Jim's mother washed the floor and his dad just sat in front of the fire.

Without a comma, at face value we don’t know whether Jim’s mother “washed the floor and his dad” while she was sitting at the fire. It’s plausible, albeit unlikely. If that’s what the author meant, there should be a comma after dad.

A more likely scenario is that Jim’s mother “washed the floor” (not his dad). Putting a comma after floor would remove ambiguity.

If adding a comma doesn’t make the meaning more clear, and [notice my comma before the ‘and’ <— ] doesn’t signal a part of the sentence that could be deleted without changing the meaning, or even tell the reader where to take a breath, you could happily live without it.

There’s a (likely better-reasoned) explanation here:
https://www.ole.bris.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/c ... 0b7bd6cc44" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;