- From: Elliotte Harold <elharo@metalab.unc.edu>
- Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 11:48:18 -0500
- To: Adam Kuehn <akuehn@nc.rr.com>
- CC: www-style@w3.org
Adam Kuehn wrote: > Although most authorities agree that the commas after "HTML" and "XML" > are optional, including them is grammatically correct and in this case > is probably the better practice. On first encountering this sentence, a > reader may well interpret "in HTML element names" as a complete phrase > and only re-think that construction upon reaching the word "and". Using > the comma following each brief introductory phrase prevents this from > happening. (Incidentally, your proposed alternative is probably > incorrect, as well. The semicolon should be a comma in your proposed > phrasing, according to most style guides. One would use a semicolon > only if the conjunction were removed.) You can argue about the commas. The semicolon I'm sure of though, at least for U.S. English. When either of the two independent clauses joined by a conjunction contains a comma, a semicolon must be used before the coordinate conjunction. -- Elliotte Rusty Harold elharo@metalab.unc.edu XML in a Nutshell 3rd Edition Just Published! http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/xian3/ http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0596007647/cafeaulaitA/ref=nosim
Received on Thursday, 29 December 2005 16:48:29 UTC