Lists Without "And" [duplicate]

Question

I just came across this sentence:

Everyone has lost his country, his home, his equilibrium.

I've seen such structure used numerous times but I'm not sure how this works. What effect does it have on the sentence to remove and before the final item of the list? What rule of grammar makes this sentence grammatically correct? In terms of grammar, how do the two sentences below differ?

He sat there thinking about the past, the future.

He sat there thinking about the past and the future.

My guess was that instead of creating a list, such sentences added bracketing phrases/clauses. I'm not sure if that's the case, though, since the information added sometimes appears to be unrelated to what has come before and essential to the sentence. For instance, thoughts about the future are more important than thoughts about the past in the sentence above.

Answer 1

It is merely a form of emphasis. The most common sequencing is a list with an and separating the last item from the one immediately proceeding. Using the less common form without and is a way of suggesting the list is important.

I lost my money, my job, my good name. [I lost everything]

Sometimes it is used to suggest a list increasing in value. Often, when spoken, the last term is emphasized (spoken louder or with a rising inflection).

He bought a Jaguar, a company, a country!

The repeat of the article or the possessive pronoun is also commonly used in this type of construction for emphasis.

Answer 2

The omission of and is a stylistic device, which allows the writer to suggest the list not definitive, but might continue.

Answer 3

Often, it seems to suggest that the list is not a sequence of independent things but is rather multiple ways of saying the same thing. In the sentence you quote, it seems to suggest that "country" and "home" are not being used literally - you're not lost in a foreign land nor have you had your house repossessed. Instead, you've lost some essential element of your identity and you're struggling to identify exactly what it is.

Answer 4

This is similar to asyndeton, the rhetorical device of leaving conjunctions out for emphasis. These are not simple lists, however.

• Veni, vidi, vici: I came, I saw, I conquered.
• ...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Answer 5

In the list without the "and", "He thought about his past, his present, his future.",there is a sense of connection,and a sense of continuity as well as a sense of sequence.

The list with "and" is just that, a list; where all items independently come together to contribute to the list.

Also, the list without the "and" creates a mood, a sense of emotion...a build up, while the list with the and is merely informative.

Lastly is the sense of finality, in the list which uses "and", while the list without "and" may hold the possibility of more.

Answer 6

The absence of the final 'and' creates a more emotional tone. It is more poetic. Omitting the final conjunction creates or maintains a certain tension due to the final term not being telegraphed in advance by the 'and', which by convention signals the end of that kind of sequence.

The final 'and' guides the sentence down to a sense of landing or settling. When it's missing, the sentence stays 'up', partly because in its absence the final term is not known to be the final term until it is not followed by another term. It creates a sense of the sentence having ended prematurely, which causes the pause in between the last term and the sentence that immediately follows to be perceived differently -- if there is a following sentence, which there might not be, since it's a good place to end a paragraph/chapter/speech/etc. When spoken, that pause will likely be fractionally longer than otherwise, so the sentence can sink in, almost like letting an echo or reverb die out. It produces a different cadence. It's more dramatic, and can have an imploring quality, so it could sound silly or pretentious if used with a sequence that somehow doesn't deserve the pomp, the circumstance, the glorification. :)

I also think it's more difficult to achieve the effect with only 2 terms, because a third term is required to establish a sense of your being in a list, which is required to create a sense of a premature ending. It's because the ending feels premature that the sequence feels like it could continue. The sequence can be extended to 4 or more terms, but eventually you hit a point of diminishing returns. Though it all depends on the delivery.

A different but comparable effect can be created if instead of omitting the last 'and', you replace all of the commas with an 'and'.

It manipulates expectations.