Question

Has anyone else notices that things sound best in threes? Ex. "They ate clam and lobster."
"They ate eel, clam, and lobster"

"Sarah ice-skated and fished"
"Sarah ice-skated, swam, and fished"

Answer 1

ah, but there's always the question of the oxford comma....

Answer 2

The Oxford Comma, aka serial comma, is vital for comprehension and should always be used. It's traditionally dropped in certain journalistic stylebooks, but no one seems to recall how that tradition started: olde tyme hand typesetters often ran out of commas, thus.... Obviously they didn't have that problem at Oxford. Seriously, if you don't use it, you run your reader into lots of confusion--even if you're a reporter. Oh, by the way, there IS a principle commonly called "the rule of 3's." The questioner is right: things do sound best in threes so you should always try to come up with a third item.

Answer 3

Yes, politicians often use this strategy to emphasize their point.

Answer 4

dude....good point