Commas with proper nouns, titles, dates and addresses Copy

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Commas often appear with proper nouns, titles, numbers, dates and addresses. They serve to separate parts of the information.

Will you, Stephen, pass the salt for me?

Yes, Mummy, I will.

Jo Brown, MD, chaired the meeting.

I inherited £15,000 from my mother’s estate.

We met on December 15, 2003.

I live in Salcombe, Devon.

Note that no comma is used for the year 2003, even though it’s in the thousands.

There are ways of simplifying the information so as to reduce the number of commas being used (and reduce the dottiness on the page). How you do this depends on the context.

We met on December 15, 2019.

We met on 15 December 2019.

We met in December 2019.