Diane Keaton: play it again
The passing of actress Diane Keaton at the age 79 gives us opportunity to ruminate on punctuation, and the BBC's disdain for it. In this case the works of its no-shits-given culture reporter, Noor Nanji.
According to her, Keaton's filmography includes, among others, Play It Again; Sam; and Love and Death and Manhattan:
Throughout her more than five-decade career, Keaton starred in dozens of other films including The Family Stone, Because I Said So, And So It Goes, as well as a number of other Woody Allen films, like Play It Again, Sam, Sleeper, Love and Death and Manhattan.
Noor Nanji, BBC News
To be honest, I've never heard of any of them. I have, however, heard of Play It Again, Sam; Love and Death; and Manhattan. I suspect that the problem lies with Nanji's grammatical skills, or lack thereof.
Items within a list of articles can be separated by either commas or semicolons. Often, it makes no difference which, but if commas are used then care should be taken to consider whether the Oxford comma should make an appearance. In this case, Love and Death and Manhattan
would very much have benefitted from its inclusion.
But semicolons are preferable to impart clarity in delineating list items when commas are used as general punctuation within the same sentence, as above, or when listed items themselves include commas, as in Play It Again, Sam.
The sloppiness isn't all of Nanji's own doing, of course. No one on the editorial team either read her article or understood the opportunity for reader confusion. They're all as bad as each other.
Throughout her more than five-decade career, Keaton starred in dozens of other films, including The Family Stone; Because I Said So; And So It Goes, as well as a number of other Woody Allen films, like Play It Again, Sam; Sleeper; Love and Death; and Manhattan.
Noor Nanji, with additional copyediting