When we have phrases joined together by words such as and or but , this is referred to as coordination. Words like and and but are called coordinators (or 'coordinating conjunctions'). Notice that when we have coordinations of more than two types of phrase or clause, we normally only put a coordinator before the last one:
- men, women and children
- red, white and blue
Each of the coordinated clauses or phrases is called a coordinate. Sometimes, we can leave out the coordinator altogether. This is called asyndetic coordination. It looks like this:
- They were all there: men, women, children.
- I love bananas, melons, pomegranates.
Notice there is no word and in the examples above. Asyndetic coordination normally happens when there are three or more coordinates. However, it is also, possible to use asyndetic coordination with only two coordinates, as in:
- She loves melons, pomegranates.
Asyndetic coordination is much rarer than normal coordination, and makes these sentences feel unusual and interesting. It is even rarer when there are only two coordinates. We wouldn't want to use sentences like these all the time.
When we have coordinations of clauses, we can often leave out information which would be repeated in the second clause:
- I ate the sandwiches, and Bob
ate the cake.
Asyndetic coordination is quite common in these special types of "gapped" sentence:
- I ate the sandwiches, Bob the cake.
The Original Posters examples
The Original Poster's examples of asyndetic coordination are interesting and literary in feeling. They involve the coordination of two verb phrases without any coordinator. They are even more unusual than normal cases of asyndetic coordination, because they each have only two coordinates, not three.
Again, these are interesting and create an unusual atmosphere. But we wouldn't want to read a novel where every sentence was written like this. It would spoil the effect completely.
