Commas with Equal Adjectives

Newsroom101

Commas between Equal Adjectives

Sometimes you need a string of adjectives to describe something:

a long difficult unreasonable annoying lecture
a surprised baffled amazed happy man

Where do you put the commas? --

Put commas between adjectives that have "equal rank."

OK, what makes "equal rank?"

Here's the test: If you can join the adjectives with "and," put a comma there.

If not, don't put a comma there.

Let's try it:

a long and difficult and unreasonable and annoying lecture
a surprised and baffled and amazed and happy man

Substitute commas for the places where and worked:

a long, difficult, unreasonable, annoying lecture
a surprised, baffled, amazed, happy man

Watch out for the "noun phrase" -- a combination of an adjective and a noun that acts like a single word. You do not need a comma before a noun phrase.

expensive, colorful, outrageous, ridiculous [no comma] spring fashions

"Spring fashions" is a noun phrase identifying the thing the other adjectives modify.

a surprised, baffled, amazed, happy [no comma] young man

"Young man" is the noun phrase the other adjectives modify.

Practice using commas between equal adjectives.