Is there a proper/better way to write a serial comma separated list of dates? It feels like I shouldn't be mixing date commas with the serial commas

Question

For example, consider the following sentence:

The company mentioned the project in press releases dated September 13, 2020, May 21, 2022, and June 8, 2022.

Is that the correct way to write it? It feels awkward to mix the "date commas" with the serial commas; even if everyone knows the May 21 comma is internal to that date, it still looks weird to me.

Answer 1

The commas that normally separate items in a list are customarily all replaced with semicolons if one or more of the list items is expressed with at least one comma within itself. See MLA’s page on serial commas and semicolons. Thus:

press releases dated September 13, 2020; May 21, 2022; and June 8, 2022.

Note too that the term (and tag) “serial comma” is often specific to what is also known as the “Oxford comma”—that is, the comma preceding “and” or “or” and the final item. Some writers and editors favor including a comma in that position, while others prefer to leave it out. The above-described transformation of list commas to list semicolons would include that final comma, transforming it into what you might call an “Oxford semicolon.” But I do not recall ever seeing a semicolon-separated list that went the no-Oxford route as follows:

press releases dated September 13, 2020; May 21, 2022 and June 8, 2022.