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I'm proofreading something, and came across this sentence:

We believe the strength of our design is in our ability to be dynamic yet focused, clean yet inviting and organized yet exploratory.

It kind of feels like it needs some more punctuation to be more readable, but the only idea I had was to add semi-colons, which made it feel kind of choppy:

We believe the strength of our design is in our ability to be dynamic, yet focused; clean, yet inviting; and organized, yet exploratory.

Thoughts?

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  • Why the close votes? Is this frivolous?
    – Kris
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 9:16
  • I don't think semicolons are that necessary here, the comma should do. Like @Andrew Leach said, just drop the and, replacing with a comma.
    – Kris
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 9:19

2 Answers 2

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The punctuation police are going to jump on me for this, but this seems to me like a case for a comma before the "and". It would add readability, even though it would stray a little from the prescriptivists' rule book.

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    I love (and use) the Oxford comma! And this is a case when it would improve the meaning.
    – JLG
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 0:16
  • I'm a big fan of the Oxford comma as well. :)
    – jessica
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 13:09
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I like the bullet-point directness of the second example, but I would drop the and. Asyndeton has much to recommend itself in punchy lists.

We believe the strength of our design is in our ability to be dynamic, yet focused; clean, yet inviting; organized, yet exploratory.

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  • 1
    +1 Right about the and. Obviously, OP's intent was a 'punchy' effect. However, the semicolons seem too glaring. Commas should do, I think.
    – Kris
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 9:16
  • Actually not feeling the punchiness so much, that was partly my issue with the semi colons. Thanks for your suggestion, though.
    – jessica
    Commented Apr 3, 2012 at 13:09

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