Re: Add comma after e.g. and i.e.?

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us>
Cc: PostgreSQL-documentation <pgsql-docs(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: Add comma after e.g. and i.e.?
Date: 2020-08-25 19:10:44
Message-ID: 2760922.1598382644@sss.pgh.pa.us
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Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
> We are inconsistently about adding a comma after e.g. and i.e.:

> This summarizes the recommended behavior:
> https://jakubmarian.com/comma-after-i-e-and-e-g/
> In British English, “i.e.” and “e.g.” are not followed by a comma, so
> the first example above would be:
> They sell computer components, e.g. motherboards, graphic cards, CPUs.
> Virtually all American style guides recommend to follow both “i.e.” and
> “e.g.” with a comma (just like if “that is” and “for example” were used
> instead), so the very same sentence in American English would become:

> So, what do we want to do? Leave it unchanged, or pick one of these
> styles?

I think it's fairly pointless to try to enforce such a thing.
Even if you made the docs 100% consistent on the issue today,
they wouldn't stay that way for long, because nobody else is
really going to care about it.

(FWIW, I generally write a comma myself. But I'm not going
to cry about text that hasn't got one.)

regards, tom lane

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