Commas or no commas in this sentence

[Lux Interior]

Kamas were an advanced weapon.

I learned the bo staff and sai, but didn't do nunchaku or kama.

Wait what?

[August West]

I'm a descriptive grammarian, but I use the oxford comma as a convention. Sometimes it's necessary to keep clarity in your writing, so I just always insert it in order to avoid constant considerations about its necessity.

This cat has a cogent blog post covering perspectives in this thread

[Lew Zealand]

I would use commas if restricted to using only those words in that exact arrangement. It doesn't flow well, but is precisely clear.

However if given the option, I woulds restructure the sentence as many others have already said.

An example: I restructured my first sentence above to avoid the use of a comma which unnecessarily broke up the sentence, and it flows much better now.

[Numo]

Tiangou wrote:
No commas in print under most circumstances.

But if you were trying to indicate a place to pause while speaking, then you might use commas or em-dashes:

"Can you think of any other popular laws that are -- or were -- broken by people?" she asked, pausing dramatically and then putting great emphasis on the word "were."

I like using em-dashes the best because I think it replicates the rhythm of speech in order to clarify it’s meaning. .

There is an OCD aspect to this conversation that I enjoyed.

[Blankity Blank]

Lux Interior wrote:
Kamas were an advanced weapon.

I learned the bo staff and sai, but didn't do nunchaku or kama.

Wait what?

Kamas? Out of the question. I’d van Gogh myself inside of a week.

Love the bo, but how are you gonna get one on a bus? And you know it’s never going to fit in the overhead bin on a plane. You’ll never see an Air Marshal with one.

And the sai? Every five minutes some joker yelling “Why don’t you just stab him?!?” And there’s no way I could deal with all the bullfighter comments.

So, nunchaku and a wardrobe of “No I’m not Bruce Lee” t-shirts it is.

[dk62]

My general feeling is that the version without commas is incorrect, but I am not a native speaker.

[Dennis S]

Todd's keyboard wrote:
Wow, I love the Oxford comma. I wrote a book that did not use Oxford commas, and I wish I could take back all of the copies and insert multitudes of Oxford commas. (It was not that important a book.)

We invited two clowns, my English teacher and my math teacher. (two people were invited)

We invited two clowns, my English teacher, and my math teacher. (four people were invited)

Todd's Limey keyboard

My favorite: “At the bar were two lesbians, Merle Haggard and Henry Kissinger.”