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I have a sentence that contains a list of items, and the last item in the list contains an "and" (e.g. like a pet shop may sell "hampsters" and "cat and dog beds", but not "hamsters", "cats" and "dog beds").

I'm struggling to form the sentence correctly, as the last item's "and" gets confused with the "and" within the item itself.

The list's items are:

  1. file upload functionality
  2. image thumbnailing
  3. file and image hosting

The sentence I'm trying is:

Developers use X to add file upload functionality, image thumbnailing, and file and image hosting to their apps.

A friend suggested this:

Developers use X to add file upload functionality, image thumbnailing, file, and image hosting to their apps.

What is the correct way to write this?

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  • Your friend's suggestion is awful! I don't see a problem with your "original" version anyway, but perhaps you might prefer ...file upload functionality, image thumbnailing, and hosting of files and images to their apps. Or replace the word "and" within that final item by an ampersand or slash (file & image hosting, file/image hosting). Though I must say that in this specific example I don't see why you have that extraneous "and" anyway. They're hosting files - some of which may be image files, but why bother to explicitly mention those but not other file types?
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented May 23, 2022 at 12:26
  • Great comments, thank you! To your last question: "image hosting" is required for SEO :(
    – Lawrence Wagerfield
    Commented May 23, 2022 at 17:09

1 Answer 1

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One option:

Developers use X to add file upload functionality, image thumbnailing, file hosting and image hosting to their apps.

Another option:

Developers use X to add upload and hosting of files; and thumbnailing and hosting of images to their apps.

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