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All member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO—including Iceland, which joined in 1949; Hungary, which joined in 1999; and Bulgaria, which joined in _____ are committed to NATO’s principle of collective defense, each member pledging to defend all others.

Which choice completes the text so that it conforms to the conventions of Standard English?

A. 2004;
B. 2004,
C. 2004
D. 2004—

Since commas are used around nonessential elements, my view is that:

  • The clause should be set off by commas, and
  • Because there is already a comma before “or” (in the full sentence), the ending comma after the year should also be included — meaning the correct choice should be B: “2004,”.

Is D: “2004—” is acceptable, since the main clause resumes immediately after, and the previous punctuation used was dashes (for the earlier appositive offset: “—including Iceland…”)?

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    I like D, though I'd restructure into 2 sentences. Commented Jun 16 at 20:34
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    Doesn't it have more to do with style guides than Standard English? Personally, I don't like the use of semicolons in addition to the em-dashes. Commented Jun 16 at 20:51
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    I don't understand why the sentence was overcomplicated by mentioning 3 of the 32 member nations and the dates they joined. Commented Jun 16 at 20:57
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    @WeatherVane To include a semicolon-delimited list that would complicate parsing so that there's a legitimate question. Commented Jun 17 at 13:36
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    I'd put it in parentheses. Commented Jun 17 at 14:18

3 Answers 3

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Yes, the answer is D.

All member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO—including Iceland, which joined in 1949; Hungary, which joined in 1999; and Bulgaria, which joined in 2004—are committed to NATO’s principle of collective defense, each member pledging to defend all others.

A somewhat convoluted sentence but I would use an em-dash at the end of the three phrases, begun with an em-dash.

Unless it comes at the end, which this one does not, you need two em-dashes.

em dash

Dashes set off or introduce defining phrases and lists.

For example, from Merriam Webster too:

The bakery's significantly broad hours of operation —6 a.m. to 6 p.m.— certainly showed concern for customers’ manifold circumstances.

versus, at the end:

Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, snickerdoodle, both macarons and macaroons—the panoply of cookie varieties was impressive as well.

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  • When we put D, the structure places only one comma between the subject “All member nations” (comma before "or") and the verb “are committed,” which breaks standard punctuation rules. A nonessential phrase like that should be set off with matching punctuation on both sides. Commented Jun 16 at 22:00
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    Exactly - so the list of countries, introduced by a dash, needs to be set off by a matching dash at the end. Commented Jun 17 at 7:11
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    @Cam: There are two parentheticals, “or NATO” and “including Iceland […], Hungary […], and Bulgaria […]”, sharing a boundary; if you included both delimiting marks for both, you’d get “…North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO,—including…” To avoid that awkward “,—” in such cases, it’s conventional to give just the stronger mark. Like most punctuation conventions, it makes sense as roughly indicating speech timing: the em-dash marks the longer pause opening the second, longer, parenthetical, so there’s no need to for a separate pause to close the first one. Commented Jun 17 at 11:14
  • My brain is parsing "member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO" as "member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or member nations of NATO" as if they were two different entities. Is that just me or would "member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)" be a better choice? It would also solve the "comma next to an em-dash" problem. Commented Jun 17 at 14:46
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    @CitizenRon It is a very common convention in news-type or political writing to use an "or" to mean: what is also called. Perhaps you are not familiar with it... Commented Jun 17 at 14:54
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Since commas are used around nonessential elements, my view is that:
• The clause should be set off by commas, and
• Because there is already a comma before “or” (in the full sentence), the ending comma after the year should also be included — meaning the correct choice should be B: “2004,”.

I see what you're saying, but that's not where the relevant comma would go.

  • The phrase that's set off with dashes ("including Iceland, which joined in 1949; Hungary, which joined in 1999; and Bulgaria, which joined in 2004") modifies the entire phrase "All member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO". (Iceland, Hungary, and Bulgaria are three such member nations.)
  • The comma before "or NATO" would normally be paired with a comma after "or NATO" ("The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, is a military alliance […]").

If we were to include the paired comma, it would look like this:

*All member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO,—including Iceland, which joined in 1949; Hungary, which joined in 1999; and Bulgaria, which joined in 2004—are committed to NATO’s principle of collective defense, each member pledging to defend all others.

. . . but in present-day English, we never put a comma and an em dash together like that, so the paired comma is dropped in favor of the em dash.

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    Yes, and it's worth adding that there is strictly speaking another paired comma after 2004 (paired with the comma after Bulgaria), which likewise gets subsumed by the dash. Commented Jun 17 at 12:08
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    Yes, or a dash needs an opener and a closer if not in end position. Ergo, no comma. Commented Jun 17 at 15:18
  • I didn't dv you even though I explained this better, if we are honest. Commented Jun 18 at 11:21
  • @Lambie: Your answer is totally fine, but it doesn't explain the issue explained in this answer. (This answer is really intended as a complement to yours, not as competition.) Commented Jun 18 at 12:11
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I'm suggesting "none of the above" and to instead use parenthesis for declaring the acronym.

All member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) —including Iceland, which joined in 1949; Hungary, which joined in 1999; and Bulgaria, which joined in 2004— are committed to NATO’s principle of collective defense, each member pledging to defend all others.

This avoids the confusion of what to do if using commas around "or NATO" with em-dashes nearby.

I have found the usage in places like the U.S. Department of State, the Council on Foreign Relations, History.com, and even NATO's own 'About Us' webpage, so I think it's safe to assume it is acceptable.

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  • Not possible. SATs are multiple choice. Commented Jun 18 at 15:24

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