[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: line adjustment at the end of a sentence
From: |
Joe Fineman |
Subject: |
Re: line adjustment at the end of a sentence |
Date: |
Sun, 14 Oct 2012 11:58:59 -0400 |
User-agent: |
Gnus/5.101 (Gnus v5.10.10) Emacs/22.3 (windows-nt) |
dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs) writes:
> Next subject:
>
> Is it:
>
> a, b and c
Most people's natural punctuation; observed religiously in
journalism.
> or
> a, b, and c ?
A shibboleth. Advised by all the tonier stylebooks, and required by
the tonier publishers, on both sides of the Atlantic. As a
copyeditor, I have inserted many thousands of such commas.
The serial comma (Harvard comma, Oxford comma) has been controversial
for at least a century. The name "Harvard comma" is usual among
journalists & probably harks back to the time when "Harvard" in such
circles connoted "rich intellectual snob".
--
--- Joe Fineman joe_f@verizon.net
||: Quotation marks & car horns are warning devices that are :||
||: used by the vulgar to express their feelings. :||