What are the three most common coordinating conjunctions?
And, but and or are the three most commonly used coordinating conjunctions. They can be used to join almost any two or more words or word groups. • Josh, Sarah and Zeke climbed down from the wagon seat. (3 nouns) • Slowly and carefully, they led the oxen out of the creek. (2 adverbs) • The struggling oxen rose but fell again in the mud. (2 verbs) • At last, the wagon was on dry land but in poor condition. (2 phrases) • Some of the spokes on the wheels were bent or broken. (2 adjectives) • The travellers could walk to town, or they could camp by the creek. (2 clauses) Note: When you use a coordinating conjunction between two independent clauses (sentences), you must put a comma before it, as in the last example above.
