In the sentence above, are the blue and the red commas both necessary, or just one, or neither?
Also, not related to commas, but would the sentence
be just as correct from a grammatical standpoint? (I’m not asking which sounds better, just if they are both technically okay.)
I like the first sentence better…it seems to flow easier.
As far as commas, I am a veritable bear for them, and often have to go back and take out the extra, unnecessary ones, so I don’t know how good a judge I will be. As far as I can tell, your commas are fine.
The blue one is necessary, because it set’s off the clause “Before moving to Summerville, …” Adding in the Texas part doesn’t change the need for the comma.
The red one is debateable. Some style manuals prefer to have the comma before the “and.” Some do not.
Prescriptivity-wise, I can’t help you, but to me removing this comma:
just looks really awkward. Oddly enough if you had taken out the Summerville,
looks decent, although still scans awkwardly, because I still want to make “Texas the orangutan” a noun group, a tendency which is even more pronounced when I read “Moving to Summerville, Texas the orangutan”.
Hmmmm, I am seriously considering changing my Username to “Texas the Orangutan.” I’ll sit one week on it and change my mind.
The red one depends on your style guide. The blue one is required because of the phrase (sorry, DS, it’s not a clause), but most style guides would use it anyway because of the state name.
I think I would prefer: “The orangutan had lived in Georgia, Monterrey, Laos, and Quebec, before moving to Summerville, Texas.”
Although I doubt the first list is chronological, which I would prefer.
Tris
I would never use the second comma. Commas between items in a list are in place of the word “and” so having a comma and the word “and” is redundant.
Nor would I, but as noted above this would depend on whose rules you’re following.
The first one definitely is required.
I agree with the consensus so far. The blue comma is required; the red one is optional (depending on your favorite style guide.)
(my bolding)
Nitpick: the commas in the list given in the OP represent “and”, but they could just as easily represent “or”.
(eg. “The orangutan may have lived in Monterrey, Ulan Bator or Timbuktu.”)
The red comma is required in APA style, which specifies a comma before “and” in a series of 3 or more.
I tend to prefer the comma before “and” in a list, as it clarifies that the items are separate. “I enjoy a meal of bacon, eggs, and coffee” instead of “I enjoy a meal of bacon, eggs and coffee” because ‘eggs and coffee’ together is a pretty nasty combination. I don’t put my eggs in my coffee.
Sometimes, though, XXX and YYY do belong together: “I cooked meat loaf, macaroni and cheese, and cabbage.” If we take out the final comma, it appears that the cabbage is a part of the mac 'n cheese: “I cooked meat loaf, macaroni and cheese and cabbage.”
Still, it is a personal preference, or one dictated by a style guide.
In UK English, the comma before an “and” is seen as a US thing. Personally I think it removes ambiguity, but a large number of my compatriots disagrees with me.
The use of a comma between a placename and its greater enclosure (e.g. Paris, France) seems a very US thing. I think in most UK styles, one would avoid this construction by being more wordy: “Before moving to Summerville, a town in Texas, the orangutan lived in Georgia, Monterrey, Laos and Quebec.”
I didn’t know that. So what’s the correct way of writing a British address? Picking one at random off the net- 1, Railway Terrace, Derby, Derbyshire, DE1 2RU - would that be
1 Railway Terrace
Derby Derbyshire
DE1 2RU
or are there commas?
One English- or European- thing that I much prefer to the American style is dating.
17 November 2007
works much better than
November 17, 2007
and it’s much better structured. The Anglo-Euro style goes from smallest increment (day) to larger (month) to largest (year) while ours goes from middle to smallest to largest- makes no sense. I’ve no real opinion on whether the time is 2:30 p.m. or 14:30 or 14.30, but I’d accept any of them if we could standardize the dating style.
These days this would be perfectly acceptable. The use of the comma in addresses is dying out - but this has only been the case over the past couple of decades. However, that’s very different to the usage of the comma signifying a small place described by its enclosure in prose. I think the erosion of the former is actually a coincidence (possibly caused by addresses mainly being stored in databases).
Town/city and county get separate lines, ie.
1 Railway Terrace
Derby
Derbyshire
DE1 2RU
Commas optional, but no commas is becoming the convention.
Hmm.
Just in case any Brits don’t know and are curious, our addresses are written like this:
George Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500
The period after avenue is optional, as is the abbreviation (though that’s standard) while all states and districts and territories have two-letter abbreviations (though certainly you could write out “Washington, District of Columbia”, but nobody ever does). Increasingly we’re using an extra four digits after the zip code 20500-2016 (or whatever) if known. City and state/district/territory are almost always on the same line, comma optional but usual.
Yeah, I missed that. However, the county is optional too these days, and the postcode often lives on the same line as the city, so also common would be:
1 Railway Terrace
Derby DE1 2RU
Damn you, beat me to one of my pet peeves, people including counties which are either incorrect or simply no longer exist, such as Middlesex.
While our DD/MM/YYYY format is fully established, the longhand writing of dates is not quite as clear-cut. In this situation, I like to quote one major British newspaper’s style guide:
Before the move to Texas, the orangutan lived in…', and in another sentence identify Summerville as a Texan town. And avoid the order of other locations given, because Georgia becomes ambiguous.