Commas
Q. Can you help me out with a question? Do you use a comma after the abbreviation of the word incorporated? For example, in the sentence “Today, ABC Company, Inc., announced that their earnings have increased 50 percent in the past year,” we have been told to use a comma after the word “Inc.” when used in a sentence. This has caused an uproar within the company because we did not learn this rule. Help!
A. CMOS favors the following rule (paragraph 6.50):
Commas are not required around Inc., Ltd., and such as part of a company’s name. As with Jr., however, if commas are used, they must appear both before and after the element.
The president of Millennial Products Inc. was the first speaker.
or
The president of Millennial Products, Inc., was the first speaker.
With company names, it is often assumed that the official name has or doesn’t have a comma before “Inc.”—but the rule stated above assumes that it is optional for any company. If a company insists that the comma, for example, is an inviolable part of the name, I can see an argument for not using a second comma—for efficiency and as long as this is done consistently. But I’d still advise following the manual’s recommendations.
