34 / PART ONE: THE BASICS Breaking up a list Commas can be used to separate items in a list. In this case the last item must be preceded by ‘and’: Johnny played hockey, soccer, rugby, lacrosse and tennis. not: Johnny played hockey, soccer, rugby, lacrosse, tennis. Commas can be used to separate a list of main clauses. The last one must also be preceded by ‘and’. Kit was listening to her Walkman, David was trying to do his homework, Mum was feeding the baby and Dad was reading the paper. If the ‘and’ had been missed out and a comma used instead after ‘baby’, it would have been wrong. Here is the incorrect version: Kit was listening to her Walkman, David was trying to do his homework, Mum was feeding the baby, Dad was reading the paper. Look at the following example: The sea was calm, the sun was shining, the beach was empty, Anne felt at peace with the world. This is wrong because there is a comma after ‘empty’ instead of ‘and’. Here is the correct version.