Is 'and' essential in a colon list? [duplicate]

I would like to know if an 'and' is always necessary before the last item in a colon list.

Is the following correct, or should I place an 'and' before 'grapes'?

The basket contained a variety of fruits: bananas, apples, oranges, grapes.

Thanks.

Solution 1:

The deceptively simple answer is that and is customary before the last item in a comma-delimited list

(in a sentence, at least; bulleted lists on slides don't fall under grammatical rules).

This means that leaving it out draws attention to the sentence.
And that's exactly what the author intends to do -- draw attention to the sentence.

The result of leaving the and out, in speech, is to end the sentence without a full-stop intonation dip. That leaves the perception that something is still left to come, and we strain to hear it -- or at least our instincts do, and our parsing habits are guided by them. The result is a peculiar form of emphasis.