Does the following sentence have any missing commas or semicolons? If so, where?: We are shipping to Salem Oregon Kalamazoo Michigan Peoria Illinois and a few other places.

1 Answer
Mar 15, 2016

Yes, it lacks both. The proper sentence should be "We are shipping to Salem, Oregon; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Peoria, Illinois; and a few other places."

Explanation:

First, note that the list in the sentence is really composed of three different components:

  • Salem, Oregon
  • Kalamazoo, Michigan
  • Peoria, Illinois

If we constructed the sentence with commas in between each of these terms, we would be left with a confusing sentence:

We are shipping to Salem, Oregon, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Peoria, Illinois, and a few other places.

We can clarify this list by using semicolons between the "state, city" pairs:

We are shipping to Salem, Oregon; Kalamazoo, Michigan; Peoria, Illinois; and a few other places.