phambrenda wrote:
Can someone please help me understand why you can use comma and for a dependent phrase here? I thought you can only use the comma and for a list of more than three items and connecting two independent clauses.
(D) online, and that they expected the increase of piracy as high-speed Internet connections would become more widely available
The short answer is that many people/schools teach things as
rules, when really they are more
guidelines.
A comma can be used anywhere a pause would help the reader understand the sentence. This would usually be the case if the sentence is particularly long. So there is no rule that says ", and" can't be used with just two items in a list. It's not common, but it's not something to be used to eliminate an answer either.
Side-note: but it's a bit of a peeve of mine when things are taught as rules that aren't. That's the most common thing I have had to help people get over, when I've helped people in our study group with verbal.
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