Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Criminal Sentence 134: Confusing Commas with Dates

From something I edited:

"In the February, 2007, edition of the New York Times..."

The writer had the right idea, sort of. If you are doing a full date (for example, February 14, 2009), then you do need the commas around the year:

"In the February 14, 2009, edition of the New York Times..."

You're enclosing the 2009 within commas. Commas often go in pairs. Only one comma is lonely and incorrect:

"In the February 14, 2009 edition of the New York Times..."

If you don't have the date with the month, then you don't need commas:

"In the February 2007 edition of the New York Times..."

2 comments:

  1. I think the phrase should read "in a February 2007 edition of the New York Times" (for this particular case) since the New York Times is a daily publication, not monthly. (Unless, of course, I'm wrong.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Of course you're right and I'm not perfect. Waaaaaaah!

    ReplyDelete

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