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What's the correct use of an em-dash within a comma-separated list?

E.g. is, "Tom only likes four colours: red, blue—although he's on the fence—, green, and yellow" correct or is, "Tom only likes four colours: red, blue—although he's on the fence— green, and yellow"? Neither looks correct to me...

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    No matter how you punctuate this, it's confusing. I would rephrase it entirely.
    – phoog
    Commented Mar 19, 2021 at 21:58
  • I'd go with Tom only likes four colours: red, blue—although he's on the fence, green, and yellow. The em dash is not forced to pair up.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Mar 19, 2021 at 22:19
  • Does this answer your question? Dashes to provide parenthetical information to an item in list - example from BBC?
    – k1eran
    Commented Mar 21, 2021 at 9:58
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    I hadn't found that specific post before writing this, @k1eran That definitely provides more clarity, thank you! With that in mind, I think phoog is correct; I've decided to re-jig the whole thing. Thank you!
    – James Goodchild
    Commented Mar 21, 2021 at 14:54

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