How do you make the following look nicer: "text...,etc.)."

Question

Consider the following sentence

There are many different fruits (some are harmful: apple, mango, etc.).

How do you deal with etc.).? It doesn't look nice at all.

Personally, I just omit the . after etc. and keep the sentence-ending period. I've even stopped using the dots in i.e. and e.g.. I consider these words in their own right, now, not initialisms for some other language no one speaks anymore. — Dan Bron, Feb 26 '17 at 17:51
If you use such as, you're marking the list as descriptive, not necessarily complete. So you don't need etc at all. — Lawrence, Feb 26 '17 at 18:09
Yea, I used "such as". But I guess the question conveys the issue. — Yashas, Feb 26 '17 at 18:11
Answered at When "etc." is at the end of a phrase, do you place a period after it? and usage of ie in a sentence. — Edwin Ashworth, Feb 26 '17 at 23:50
@EdwinAshworth This isn't a duplicate. This question asks a solution for the situation where you have "etc.)." or "etc.) text". — Yashas, Mar 20 '17 at 10:42
It's answered there. One solution is never to use abbreviation-specific periods after ie, etc, etc. Another is to avoid using ie, etc., etc. The 'double punctuation is over-ugly' rule-of-thumb easily extends to your example. There's no answer that will fit in with everybody's persuasions. In fact, some hold that there are binding rules rather than guidelines. But they don't always agree on what they are, and they can conflict. — Edwin Ashworth, Mar 20 '17 at 12:20

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 26 '17 at 19:35

0

There are many different fruits, of which some are harmful (e.g. apple and mango).

It's a little stilted, but I think it's better than the original.

answered Feb 26 '17 at 19:35

Mark Kasson

Your sentence is better but the issue is how to deal with ,etc.).. I just gave a bad example. – Yashas Feb 27 '17 at 04:50

1 Answers1