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Subject:Re: Commas in a series From:BurkBrick -at- AOL -dot- COM Date:Fri, 20 May 1994 15:43:40 EDT
>2. On the specific example given here, I would opt for "the wires,
> in order, are: white; blue and green; and yellow."
> I am sure that some of you will be horrified that I up the
>stakes to colon and semi-colon, but I think that the "next level" of
>pause may be called for in this instance. It separates the items
>beyond doubt. If you all think that I'm taking the sledgehammer to
>crack a nut approach, fine - but if there is enough uncertainty
>among the writers to generate this discussion, the readers are
>probably in a worse state!
I agree with you here - as a reader, I've read things that used the comma
instead of the semicolon, and wasn't sure if the writer made a mistake or if
the punctuation was deliberate. The semicolon makes it clear that it's
deliberate.
