Easy-to-process things feel truer, safer, and more appealing.
More quotesVersion one says, “effort, time and sustained organisational commitment.”
Version two says, “time, effort and sustained organisational commitment.”
Nobody has added a fact. Yet the second version sounds more deliberate because the phrases increase in length and the heaviest one gets the final stress. Order is doing editorial work while pretending to be clerical.
The habit can become ridiculous. Force every list into a rising rhythm and the prose acquires the smooth deadness of hotel art. Sometimes consequence should beat length. “Revenue, reputation, lives” gets shorter as the stakes rise. Good. Human life need not be padded with “potentially catastrophic effects on individual wellbeing” merely to satisfy the drum roll.
A product sentence is tried three ways. “Available in twenty-three countries, quick and reliable.” “Quick, reliable and available in twenty-three countries.” “Available in twenty-three countries. Reliable in all of them.” Each ending makes a different claim feel important.
That is the practical value of the guideline. It does not provide a correct order. It makes the writer choose which item should receive the last beat. A list composed by accident will still imply an answer.
The safety notice is less subtle. “Keep away from children” currently sits between two long qualifications. The editor gives it a sentence of its own.
Someone objects that the page now looks uneven. It does. The designer adjusts the spacing twice, restores the uneven version and sends the proof downstairs.