: Re: What's the best way to punctuate a list with an comma-containing item? Examples: She looked tough: pieced nose, broad eyebrows, tousled hair, almost spiky. I tried picturing him:

@Steve161

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Your sentences are exactly right, Alexandro. In each case what follows the comma is a list of sentence elements in apposition to each other, one that is appropriately punctuated with commas. In the first example, you have noun phrase appositives, and in the second, absolute phrases in apposition. One item in each list has a comma within it : hair, almost spiky, and bloodshot eyes, almost popping out. To me, these are not sufficiently complex to trigger the use of semicolons -- the lists are not confusing. If the items in your lists were more complex, with commas within each element, then you might want to avoid confusion by using semicolons.

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