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<blockquote data-quote="Arbiter of Wyrms" data-source="post: 2359617" data-attributes="member: 18021">Exactly.&nbsp; But people forget that clarity and style are, in the end, more important that convention.&nbsp; It's a good thing they are, though, because almost no one follows grammatical convention all of the time, but there are some wirtiers who manage to be clear and sytlish all the same.Your example, Jdvn1, &quot;I dedicate this book to my friends, Bob and Bill,&quot; could be read either one of two ways: 1) The author has only two friends.&nbsp; Their names are Bob and Bill.&nbsp; He or she intends to dedicate this book to them.&nbsp; This is called an appositive.&nbsp; It is a restatement of the noun phrase for the sake of clarity.2) The author wishes to dedicate the work to his or her friends, who shall remain unnamed, but also wishes to simultaneously dedicate the work to Bob and Bill, who are definately not his or her friends.&nbsp; This is a serial list in which the author has unwisely opted to omit the optional, final comma.The fact of the matter is that the final comma in a list is optional, but each author should try to be as consistent as possible.&nbsp; This thread is the best argument I've seen for including the comma between the last two items in any list of more than two items.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Arbiter of Wyrms, post: 2359617, member: 18021"] Exactly. But people forget that clarity and style are, in the end, more important that convention. It's a good thing they are, though, because almost no one follows grammatical convention all of the time, but there are some wirtiers who manage to be clear and sytlish all the same. Your example, Jdvn1, "I dedicate this book to my friends, Bob and Bill," could be read either one of two ways: 1) The author has only two friends. Their names are Bob and Bill. He or she intends to dedicate this book to them. This is called an appositive. It is a restatement of the noun phrase for the sake of clarity. 2) The author wishes to dedicate the work to his or her friends, who shall remain unnamed, but also wishes to simultaneously dedicate the work to Bob and Bill, who are definately not his or her friends. This is a serial list in which the author has unwisely opted to omit the optional, final comma. The fact of the matter is that the final comma in a list is optional, but each author should try to be as consistent as possible. This thread is the best argument I've seen for including the comma between the last two items in any list of more than two items. [/QUOTE]

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