22 May 2013

comma or no comma? adjective edition

Sometimes I get the urge to do blog posts about grammar topics as a public service, but my explanations would be no better than more consecrated grammar resources, probably, so I don't. Today is an exception, my friends.

Right now I'm reading Grammar Girl's article "Commas with Adjectives." It can sometimes be a confusing question: Do I put commas between these adjectives or not?

To summarize Grammar Girl's article, you can determine whether a comma is needed by determining if the adjective is coordinating (comma needed) or cumulative (comma not needed). Can you put the word "and" between the two adjectives? Then they're coordinating, and they each equally modify the noun. Otherwise they are cumulative, and the order of the adjectives is important, as some of them join with the noun to form a sort of unit.

So in case you were wondering about this, but you wanted to read fewer paragraphs than Grammar Girl's article because you're feeling lazy (and who isn't?), maybe this blog post is useful.


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