Comma Question

[sentraaquila]

Therefore, in 1507, his name was applied to South America, and later extended to North America.

Can I keep the bold commas or is it necessary to omit them?

Comments

[the_jackalope]

I'd eliminate the second comma and third comma. If you really felt the need for punctuation in the third place you could use a semi-colon.

So it would read: Therefore, in 1507 his name was applied to South America and later extended to North America.

or

Therefore, in 1507 his name was applied to South America; and later extended to North America.

Though honestly I'm a little skeptical about the semicolon there. I'd have to go pull out a grammar book.

[ebneter]

Hmmm, I don't think a semicolon works there. I'd write it as:

Therefore, in 1507 his name was applied to South America, and later extended to North America.

Although I might just rephrase it:

Therefore, his name was applied to South America in 1507, and later extended to North America.

Which kind of gets around the issue. ;-) (Actually, I might get rid of the "Therefore," entirely, but that's another matter...)

[the_jackalope]

Yea, the more I think about it, the more I agree with you. Though I really do think that no comma should be used before 'and'.