Re: Items in a Series and Comma Use?

[Beth Agnew <beth -dot- agnew -at- senecac -dot- on -dot- ca>]

To be specific, the question was about a train travelling from 
Paddington to Slough. Nothing about any other routes. If you want to 
talk about the entire line, then it would become too ponderous, and I'd 
want to find another way of expressing that information. I actually 
thought Hayes and Harlington should be joined with the ampersand rather 
than "and" for clarity, but I thought perhaps the person suggesting the 
stops had listed them correctly. If that's how it shows on the sign, 
then that's how it should be represented.

If the final stop was a station called Langley and Slough, then the 
sentence really should read "... West Drayton, Iver, and Langley and 
Slough". While correct, people don't like those two ands in close 
proximity. Once could write "and Langley & Slough" for differentiation, 
but then some techwriter would come along and wonder if there was a 
consistency problem. :-)

As John Posada pointed out, the clearest representation would be "... 
Southall, Hayes & Harlington, West Drayton, Iver, Langley, and Slough."

Guy K. Haas wrote: