(1) There are many island nations, e. g., Japan, Iceland, the Philippines, etc. (2) Mr. Smith is very wealthy, i. e., rich. (3) There are many island nations ( e. g., Japan....). (4) Mr. Smith is wealthy (i. e., rich). (5) There are many island

The oxford comma is usually omitted in BrE because a listing comma already represents 'and' or 'or'. 'He likes apples and oranges and grapes' becomes 'He likes apples, oranges and grapes' -- among a few other

I agree with this. I would just add that in normal, everyday British English, version #1 would seem more natural in both speech and natural. I generally walk to the town because it's only a five minute walk. - acceptable It's five

Hi Is this where American English differs from British English? The project would have been taken over by the "unwised." The project would have been taken over by the "unwised". The period comes before the

Here is the rule in American English: (different sources are consistent on this rule, and I suspect British English has the same rule.) When both the whole sentence and the unit enclosed in quotation marks are questions or exclamations, the

Is that correct? I think that a semi colon can precede "e.g." but not follow it. Is the claim about British English true? I do know that in U.S. English, one should usually write "; e.g.," or ", e.g.,". The

I've noticed that when greeting someone in a sentence, a comma often comes before the name. Example: Hello, Grace. Should a comma come after the name as well if the sentence continues on? Example: Hello, Grace, how have you been? Yes.

Hi all, I´ve found an interesting website about use of commas ( http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_commaproof.html ) and this surprised me: Place commas after each word, phrase, or clause in the series (except the last one, as

I'm afraid that in British English the rule *is* different. We do indeed tend to use hyphens after the prefix "non-" (which avoids the possibility of mispronouncing words such as "nonnative" ). As regards other prefixes,

"Non-fat" milk, ice cream, yogurt etc. Anyone else have a problem with this? I always thought it was purely American, but it has now invaded England. I blame Starbucks, who already have a lot to answer for, being largely responsible for