[net.nlang] managers students children

chabot@amber.DEC (L S Chabot) (11/14/84)

JD Brennan  ==  >
> I don't care what Fowler or the New York Times says. "Managers, students and
> other children" does not imply that managers are children.  "Managers,
> students, and other children" does!  I'd say that's a big difference. 

If you really want to imply a separation between "managers" and the rest of the
list, you should add another conjunction if "managers" is the next to the last
item in the list.

	"...managers, and students and other children, ..."

That is, if the item "students" is to be grouped with "other children".  Oops. 
Actually, many stylists (Strunk, White) would disagree with many programmers,
and prefer that sentence to be 

    "That is, if the item 'students' is to be grouped with 'other children.'"

But this whole thing seems to have been launched by a small misunderstanding.
It's too bad this medium has such a slow and unpredictable time delay, or we
might be able to nip the arguments sooner.

L S Chabot
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