Comma with and.

Question

" This unit and friendly infantry and vehicles within 6 inches of this unit gain the following modifiers: -1 defense, and ."

Is the -1 defense unrelated to making an attack that does not use a close combat or ranged combat formation?

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

Yes.

Clive

Anonymous · Answer

Is the "and" needed? What is the purpose of "and"?

Clive · Answer

Hi,

" This unit and friendly infantry and vehicles within 6 inches of this unit gain the following modifiers: -1 defense, and ."

Is the "and" needed? What is the purpose of "and"?

What follows the colon here is a list of two things,

ie . . . the following modifiers: -1 defense, and . . .

'And' is needed to form the list correctly.

eg A and B

eg A, B and C

eg A, B, C and D

Clive

Anonymous · Answer

Is the comma needed? What if the list was reversed?

Clive · Answer

Hi,

"This unit and friendly infantry and vehicles within 6 inches of this unit gain the following modifiers: -1 defense, and ."

If the list items were short, you wouldn't need a comma.

ie . . . the following modifiers: -1 defense and .

Because the second item is long, a coma helps the reader quickly to find and understand the structure of the list. The comma also shows that the 'when . . . clause applies only to 'attack'.

To reverse the list like this

". . . the following modifiers: , and -1 defense."

is possible. It does make the meaning of the 'when clause' a lot clearer. But lists are usually structured with the shorter element (s) at the front.

Perhaps the potential problem with 'longer first' is this.

I see the colon, so I think 'this is going to be a list'.

Biut if the first item is long, I start to forget I'm reading a list.

Best wishes, Clive

Anonymous · Answer

Thanks for your help Clive.

I was under the impression that this was syntactical-deductive due to the colon. How would I phrase it so both modifiers include the 'when' clause?

Clive · Answer

Hi,

"This unit and friendly infantry and vehicles within 6 inches of this unit gain the following modifiers: -1 defense, and ."

How would I phrase it so both modifiers include the 'when' clause?

Well, I note now that the 'when' clause includes the word 'attack', so it is unlikely to be interpreted as applying to the word 'defense'.

ie it doesn't seem to make sense (to me) to read it as

-1 defense when making an attack that does not use a close combat or ranged combat formation.

In terms of sentence structure, to make it very clear that it applies to both modifiers, I'd say

"This unit and friendly infantry and vehicles within 6 inches of this unit gain the following modifiers when making an attack that does not use a close combat or ranged combat formation: -1 defense, and ."

Clive

Comma with and.

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