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In favor of the serial comma

I favor using a full complement of serial commas:

The flag is red, white, and blue.

I put a comma before the conjunction in a series of three or more items. I haven't found any legal-writing source that says you can omit that comma. And I haven't yet been persuaded that including that comma ever causes a problem, though some have tried to persuade me.

Here's an example in which omitting it causes a miscue:

For property owners to be liable, they must know of a danger, the danger must not be apparent to the public and the owner must chose not to warn others of the danger.

Did you catch the miscue?

Full post as published by Legalwriting.net on July 23, 2008 (boomark / email).