Caol, about your question on commas in a series. I don't think there's any "rule.' exactly. I believe you've found the conventions. Some editors and writers follow one line; other editors and writers follow another. An awful lot of "problems" people find with conventions are because of such mixed usage. If you look, for instance, at the _New Yor Times_ style manual, you'll likely find one set of conventions. The _U.S. News_ style manual might have some different ones, particularly about comma usage, etc. The conventions are not, of course, all different. By far and large, the editors and writers of both publications will agree, though on some issues like comma usage, they may differ. So, the best you can do with problems of divided usage is to choose one way or the other and be consistent. That's really all either _The New York Times_ or U.S. News_ are doing. They're setting consistent policies for their own writers and editors. You have a choice. Myself, I put commas between all the items of a series, but I think _The NY Times_ does not. --Max