<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jul 9, 2010 at 16:23, Steve Schafer <span dir="ltr"></span>wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:07:06 -0400, brandon s. allbery wrote:<br>
> I don't think I've ever seen them *followed* by commas. Preceded, always.<br>
<br>
</div>In American English, they're always followed by commas, and preceded by<br>
comma, semicolon, dash or left parenthesis, depending on the specific<br>
context.<br></blockquote></div><br>One of the "nice" things about English is that there is often never an "always." See <a href="http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/ie-eg-oh-my.aspx">http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/ie-eg-oh-my.aspx</a> for a discussion. (For me personally, I prefer to minimize the juxtapositions of punctuation (e.g. . and ,). As long as there's not an editor looking over my shoulder telling me it's not acceptable, I will continue to do so.)<br>
<br>As for future editions of the Haskell Report, one possibility to eliminate concerns about spelling and grammar would be to decide to follow a certain dialect and style. This would reduce the number of comma-related comments.<br>
<br>Sean<br>