R. David Murray <rdmur...@bitdance.com> added the comment:

I think you are incorrect about the comma after element.  Without the comma 
'the first matching element or the default value' are tightly bound, meaning 
that if either of those is true, then the default value is returned.  That's 
obviously incorrect, so a human will parse the sentence the way you expect.  
But I think technically the comma after element turns the sentence into two 
independent clauses conjoined by 'or', so that either the first matching 
element is returned, or the default is returned (if no element was found).  I 
think it also reads better rhythmically (you will note that I used a comma in 
my sentence, as well, even though in that case no technical ambiguity results 
from leaving it out).

The comma in the other sentence I think is optional, and I agree that it reads 
better without it.

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nosy: +r.david.murray

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<http://bugs.python.org/issue6488>
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