Ian Collins said:
Richard Heathfield said:
Ian Collins said:
Phil Carmody said:
Jeez, and let fire burn you to a crisp if you should discuss threads
on comp.lang.c. Anyone who was looking for further proof of the double
standards of the topicality police after CBFalconer's foray into the
wonderful world of US software patents has all he needs above. If you
need more, view the thread "pageup/pagedwn implementation" , in which you
can find plenty of "regulars" masturbating about double spacing vs.
single, or French, spacing for sentences.
The 'and' in the quoted C99 paragraph is in a non-list context.
The serial, or Oxford/Harvard, comma refers to list contexts. This
comma can be useful in removing certain ambiguities - e.g.,
"What colors are available?"
"Yellow, red, pink, black and blue."
In that rather contrived example, there is an ambiguity concerning whether
there are four colors available ("black and blue" being one color) or five
colors available. There are better examples I've seen using sandwich dressings
to highlight the potential for ambiguities, but I can't be bothered digging them
out.
In any case, I'm aware of no style guide that advises not to use commas at all in
non-list contexts. It's usually considered correct to use a comma to separate two
independent clauses joined by an 'and', unless those clauses are quite short, in
which case the comma may be considered optional by some authorities.
I recommend discussing this further on alt.usage.engli sh, not on comp.lang.c, for
the C standard isn't written in English, as far as I can tell.
Yours,
Han from China
Il mittente di questo messaggio|The sender address of this
non corrisponde ad un utente |message is not related to a real
reale ma all'indirizzo fittizio|person but to a fake address of an
di un sistema anonimizzatore |anonymous system
Per maggiori informazioni |For more info
In non-American English commas are seldom, if ever, placed before an and.
I am not American, and I certainly don't use American English. Nevertheless
I often find myself using a comma immediately before an "and", and
sometimes afterwards as well(!), and none of my English teachers at school
ever objected, and this was in the days when most of the books I read were
written, and published, in the UK, and even those that did come from the
USA were "anglicised " (i.e. all the punctuation, grammar, and spelling was
translated back into English), and this, I hope, shows that my education
was not affected by US usage.
>
The above paragraph is obviously rather artificial, but it doesn't contain
any grammar that I would be unhappy using in my capacity as Englishman.
I often find myself using a comma immediately before an "and", and
sometimes afterwards as well(!), and none of my English teachers at school
ever objected, and this was in the days when most of the books I read were
written, and published, in the UK, and even those that did come from the
USA were "anglicised " (i.e. all the punctuation, grammar, and spelling was
translated back into English), and this, I hope, shows that my education
was not affected by US usage.
>
The above paragraph is obviously rather artificial, but it doesn't contain
any grammar that I would be unhappy using in my capacity as Englishman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma a fairly balanced account.
What about the Oxford comma? OUP and Fowler both recommend its use.
The Guardian's neutral, advising its use if it would aid understanding.
I'm a Brit, and I'm very pro the Oxford comma; this is surprising, as
I tend to disagree with Fowler practically every time he's used as
support for some contruct.
The Guardian's neutral, advising its use if it would aid understanding.
I'm a Brit, and I'm very pro the Oxford comma; this is surprising, as
I tend to disagree with Fowler practically every time he's used as
support for some contruct.
on comp.lang.c. Anyone who was looking for further proof of the double
standards of the topicality police after CBFalconer's foray into the
wonderful world of US software patents has all he needs above. If you
need more, view the thread "pageup/pagedwn implementation" , in which you
can find plenty of "regulars" masturbating about double spacing vs.
single, or French, spacing for sentences.
The 'and' in the quoted C99 paragraph is in a non-list context.
The serial, or Oxford/Harvard, comma refers to list contexts. This
comma can be useful in removing certain ambiguities - e.g.,
"What colors are available?"
"Yellow, red, pink, black and blue."
In that rather contrived example, there is an ambiguity concerning whether
there are four colors available ("black and blue" being one color) or five
colors available. There are better examples I've seen using sandwich dressings
to highlight the potential for ambiguities, but I can't be bothered digging them
out.
In any case, I'm aware of no style guide that advises not to use commas at all in
non-list contexts. It's usually considered correct to use a comma to separate two
independent clauses joined by an 'and', unless those clauses are quite short, in
which case the comma may be considered optional by some authorities.
I recommend discussing this further on alt.usage.engli sh, not on comp.lang.c, for
the C standard isn't written in English, as far as I can tell.
Yours,
Han from China
Il mittente di questo messaggio|The sender address of this
non corrisponde ad un utente |message is not related to a real
reale ma all'indirizzo fittizio|person but to a fake address of an
di un sistema anonimizzatore |anonymous system
Per maggiori informazioni |For more info
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