Here’s a good question about commas:
“When I have multiple adjectives before a noun, should I place commas between those adjectives?”
I could have my own fleet of yachts if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard this question (well, maybe not yachts—but definitely a few bass boats).
The answer: it depends! (Don’t you just love hearing that answer?)
What, though, does this decision depend on? To answer this question, here’s a quick rule of thumb for commas and adjectives:
Comma-between-Adjectives Rule of Thumb: If two adjectives precede the noun they modify, place commas between them if you would replace the comma with the word and. If and would not work there, since the adjectives seem inseparable, do not place a comma.
Confusing? An example will serve best:
The painful, frigid winter air bit into Bob’s bones.
Notice that there is a comma between painful and frigid, but not between frigid and winter. Why?
Remember the rule of thumb: if and can replace the comma, then the comma is correct. Let’s apply the rule to the sentence above:
The painful and frigid winter air bit into Bob’s bones. (correct)
That works, doesn’t it? Now, just to be sure, let’s try adding and where we did not use a comma:
The painful and frigid and winter air bit into Bob’s bones. (incorrect)
It does not work even if we omit the adjective painful:
The frigid and winter air bit into Bob’s bones. (incorrect)
Ugh. That didn’t work. We’d best leave that second comma out.
Even though I have shared a working rule of thumb for commas separating adjectives, my inquisitive (and demanding) readers may still want an explanation of why commas sometimes fall between adjectives and why in other cases they do not. The answer is simple, but I think many teachers do not explain it well, since they too often use English grammar jargon in their explanations. Such so-called explanations only serve to accomplish the one thing that explanations should not do—fail to explain.
With that in mind, here is a working explanation for inquisitive minds. Let’s return to our example sentence:
The painful, frigid winter air bit into Bob’s bones.
Now, think about the adjectives painful and frigid. They each apply separately to the noun. I could remove one of these adjectives, and the sentence would still make sense:
The painful winter air bit into Bob’s bones. (frigid omitted)
The frigid winter air bit into Bob’s bones. (painful omitted)
Those still make perfect sense; however, if I remove winter, the sentence would not make nearly as much sense:
The painful, frigid air bit into Bob’s bones. (winter omitted)
So, the notion of winter is an integral part of the noun air. Sure, painful and frigid allow the reader to reason that the air must be winter air, but I prefer the sentence that makes this point explicit.
How then is winter different from painful and frigid in the sentence above? Remember that winter is inseparable from the noun air, such that it actually becomes part of the noun. (In some cases, such adjectives become one with their nouns completely, as seen in the nouns bighead and freeway.)
Because winter becomes part of a larger noun, the noun is effectively made up of both an adjective (winter) and a noun (air). In other words, we are not talking about a thing known simply as air. We are talking about a thing called winter air. And that noun, winter air, is modified by two separate adjectives: painful and frigid. We can see it better if we restructure the sentence this way:
The winter air that bit into Bob’s bones was both painful and frigid.
Notice that in both versions of the sentence the adjectives painful and frigid modify, not merely the word air, but the adjective-noun combination winter air. If we placed a comma between winter and air, the adjective winter would be grouped with the adjectives that define it, and not with the noun.
Here is a third example. Think about the difference between those adjectives that are divided by commas and the one that is not:
Josie lives in a stylish, spacious loft apartment.
Think about it with the sentence reorganized:
Josie lives in a loft apartment that is stylish and spacious. (correct)
But not:
Josie lives in an apartment that is stylish, spacious, and loft. (incorrect)
The following diagram shows how these adjectives function in the two sentences above. Arrows represent how one word modifies another word–to show us which word(s) receive(s) description. Notice how the comma placement changes the function of the third adjective:
See how that works? In the top diagram, the adjectives stylish and spacious modify loft apartment. In the bottom diagram, the adjectives (and so-called adjectives) stylish, spacious, and loft modify the apartment. Of course, loft is not an adjective, at least in the sense that it appears in that second diagram. That’s why it should not be treated like the other two adjectives. It functions as part of the noun, and by virtue of belonging to the noun, it receives the description of the other two adjectives.
Here is one more example:
Jack chewed on some numbing, refreshing ice cubes.
This sentence says:
The ice cubes were numbing and refreshing.
It does not say:
The cubes were numbing, refreshing, and ice.
Also, if ice should be one of the comma-separated adjectives, we can remove it and the sentence will still make sense. Let’s try it:
Jack chewed on some numbing, refreshing cubes.
If we remove all three comma-separated adjectives, we are left with this:
Jack chewed on some cubes.
Personally, I enjoy chewing on ice cubes, but not on cubes in general. Rubik’s Cubes are fun to solve (or to try to solve), but I prefer not to chew on them. (However, many dogs and toddlers would passionately disagree with me on this matter.) So, unless we want our readers to think Jack is a canine (or that he is incredibly eccentric), we should specify that these things he is chewing on are not merely cubes, but that they are ice cubes. In this sentence, the idea of a cube should not be separated from the adjective ice. By placing a comma between ice and the other two adjectives, the writer would erroneously group ice with that series of comma-combined adjectives, and not with the noun, cube. That would be a bad move, unless the writer was discussing a dog named Jack chewing on cubes that are defined by the adjective ice.
(But really–who names their dog Jack? Whatever happened to Spot or Fido? And what on earth does it mean for the cubes to be ice? Maybe it will catch on as a new slang word: “Yeah, I’m tellin’ ya: these cubes are ice, man. You gotta try some 0′ these if you wanna be ice.”)
To recap, here are our rules for commas and adjectives:
1. If and can go between two adjectives without disrupting the meaning of a sentence, you can place a comma there (in place of and).
2. If the adjective is an integral part of the noun, and if removing it would cause the noun not to make sense alone, then you should not separate it from another adjective with a comma. It should be considered part of the noun, which means that the adjective—along with the noun—is modified by the other adjectives.
3. If the adjective describes the noun but is not integral to the noun’s meaning, you should separate that adjective from the other non-integral adjectives with a comma.
Coming up: Commas and Conjunctions
Commas serve many purposes in sentences. One of the most frequent (and useful) comma functions is that commas work along with coordinating conjunctions to combine two sentences into one. To learn more about this useful comma function, click the link below:
Christopher Altman is passionate about bringing the art of effective writing to everyday Americans. In addition to writing this blog, Mr. Altman 
produces and hosts The Writer’s Toolbox Podcast, and he is currently developing a number of book projects that examine the role of language in popular media and everyday life. His book, Myths We Learned in Grade School English, explores how adult writers can overcome the false writing rules learned in childhood. When he is not writing or teaching, Mr. Altman enjoys grilling out and savoring the mild summers of Central New York, where he is a professor of English at Onondaga Community College (Syracuse, NY).
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