John said, “Margaret is on vacation from Monday, the 2nd, till Thursday, the 17th.” My question is this: Should the 2nd and the 17th be enclosed by commas as shown above? If so, why? If not, why not? Thank you.
As someone who has had excessive use of commas beaten out of her by a few betas and editors, I would cut them as so: "Margaret is on vacation from Monday the second through Thursday the seventeenth.” If I think about changing my voicemail message at work for a vacation I don't pause anywhere in that line. I also follow the advice that numbers under 100 should be spelled out non-numerically.
I would just lose the commas after Monday and Thursday. But that is just my guess. I'm interested to know what is correct. I tend to spell out numbers.
From what I can find online, it's written: “Margaret is on vacation from Monday, the 2nd, till Thursday, the 17th." I don't know why, at least no 'why' is given readily on the sites other than being a rule of American English. I know, on a personal level, that the comma after "Monday" and "Thursday" makes the sentence look more complete. However, I say the same thing for the Oxford Comma.
