Re: line adjustment at the end of a sentence

[David Combs]

In article <mailman.10975.1350238417.855.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
PJ Weisberg  <pjweisberg@gmail.com> wrote:
>-=-=-=-=-=-
>
>On Sunday, October 14, 2012, Joe Fineman <joe_f@verizon.net> wrote:
>> dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs) writes:
>>
>>> Next subject:
>>>
>>> Is it:
>>>
>>>    a, b and c
>>

I myself always use a, b, and c.

I once read that the original reason for leaving out the
final comma was with NEWSPAPERS, with their narrow columns,
and the difficulty of fitting text within them.

So typesetters started removing the final comma so
as to have more room to make things fit.

I think that if you look around you'll find that
there's a hierarchy of this usage:

--- leave out serial comma:

Newspapers

Magazines

Novels (from "average quality" publishers)

Novels, etc, from "high quality" publishers, eg Knopf.

--- include serial comma.






As to formal papers, there seems to be no rule; it's whatever
the individual author was taught in school.


David