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Subject:Ranges of more than two? From:"Geoff Hart (by way of \"Eric J. Ray\" <ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com>)" <ght -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA> Date:Wed, 23 Sep 1998 09:07:31 -0600
Melissa Mrakava wondered whether it's OK to use more than two items
in a range, as in the phrase <<... ranging from medical device
tracking to robot calibration and part inspection.>>
It's certainly mathematically incorrect to use more than two items in
a range when you're talking about numbers themselves, but it's an
increasingly accepted idiom with words. Nonetheless, given that the
wording is wrong "by the dictionary", I prefer to edit such phrases
to read "ranging from A, through B, to C" or "including A, B, and C";
the former only works if B is really intermediate, whether physically
or metaphorically. There's an obvious exception in the dictionary ("a
range of objects, including A, B, and C"), but that's not the pattern
your example follows.
--Geoff Hart @8^{)}
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place.--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
