styleguide clarification?

[Jeff Schering]

On 3/8/06, Rocco Stanzione <grasshopper at linuxkungfu.org> wrote:
> I was playing around in the serverguide (patch pending), and I noticed that in
> many places the author appears to have prepended a comma to every single
> conjunction.  Something like s/([^,]) (and|or)/\1, \2/g could have been used.
> For example:
>
Jeez, that's a little snarky. Are you trying to imply that the author
used a regex to put commas into his work? Typically, editors try to
use a bit more tact when pointing out grammar and usage errors to
authors.

> To have <application>sshd</application> allow public key-based login
> credentials, simply add, or modify the line:
>
> I can see how the series comma section of the styleguide could be
> misinterpreted this way.  Maybe a brief clarification should be added.
>

The example you provide is clearly not a series comma issue. The
series comma is used in lists. The above is not a list. The comma
after "add" above is not correct for reasons that have nothing to do
with the series comma.

As far as clarification for this goes, you may be correct. Perhaps the
style guide should say something about comma use with coordinating
conjunctions.

Cheers,
Jeff

--
Jeff Schering
GPG: F23C67E8