Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (biographies)/Survey on Style-Prefixed Honorary Titles/Archive 1

Due to the personal turn this item has taken, I took the liberty of submitting the question to Chicago Manual of Style Q&A page. Hope it helps.--ghost 04:26, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Well, this is rather OT, but it was interesting to see, and suggests that the Chicago MoS may not be the best source of grammatical advice.

"Q. When I encounter a restrictive clause with multiple elements, do I put a comma at the end of the last element? For example: The woman who was blonde, green-eyed, and slim said hello to me. Or is it: The woman who was blonde, green-eyed, and slim, said hello to me."

"A. Commas are like parentheses when they indicate nonrestriction, so you need two of them, but in a restrictive clause you don’t need them at all: The woman who was blonde, green-eyed, and slim said hello. In a nonrestrictive clause, you need a pair, whether it’s parentheses or commas: The woman (who was blonde, green-eyed, and slim) said hello. Or, The woman, who was blonde, green-eyed, and slim, said hello."

In my personal opinion, the answer is less preferred than: The woman who was blonde, green-eyed and slim, said hello. Which scans better? Whig 04:51, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Whether a comma is used after "woman" changes the meaning of the sentence.

1. No comma after "woman": The woman who was blonde, green-eyed and slim, said hello. In this case, who was blonde, green-eyed and slim identifies the woman. The information indicates which woman you referring to.
2. Comma after "woman": The woman, who was blonde, green-eyed and slim, said hello. In this case, who was blonde, green-eyed and slim is nonessential information. The woman has already been identified, and the information is extra. Maurreen 06:07, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. My point was more to the fact that the comma before the and can and should be omitted as redundant, and also that omitting the comma after slim makes the sentence hard to parse. Whether or not you put a comma after woman depends on what you mean to say, but I was going with the question asked, not trying to cover all possible inflections of meaning. Whig 06:35, 3 May 2005 (UTC)

On rereading, I'm an idiot. The comma doesn't belong after slim either in my phrasing: The woman who was blonde, green-eyed and slim said hello. Yeah. That's fine. Okay, we're way off topic and I need to go to bed. Whig 06:40, 3 May 2005 (UTC)