Setting Off Items in a Series
Use commas to separate parts in a series of three or more items.
The room was dark, damp, and dreary.
He did not know who she was, where she came from, or why she was there.
Note: Keep the comma beforeANDto emphasize the equal weight of the element.
He rented an apartment with three rooms, a kitchen, a bath with a shower, and a garage.
Note: You may need to use a comma to set off a contrasting phrase.
She liked running her own business, but not working on week-ends.
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Use commas in the sentences that require them.
1. The doctor told me not to swim ride a bicycle or drive a car.
2. He told me to listen to music read books or get a hobby.
3. The doctor recommended vitamin C iron and zinc.
4. I have to lose weight and get more sleep.
5. I’m jogging now on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays.
6. I don’t smoke or drink coffee anymore.
Coordinate attributive adjectives in a series are set off by commas.
She wore a long, sheer, and glittering gown.
It was a difficult, long, and boring class.
Note: Commas are not required if the all the items in the series are joined by coordinating conjunctions.
I’d like to be considered good and honest and reasonably accurate. (Red Smith on sports writing)
The baby was tired and cranky and wet.
Writer’s Tips:
· Commas are used between coordinate adjectives but are not used between noncoordinate adjectives. In your own sentences with adjective series, you can apply two tests to determine whether the adjectives are coordinate: The adjectives are coordinate and should be separated by commas if you can reorder the adjectives without changing the meaning, or if the word ANDcan be inserted between the adjectives without changing the meaning.
I was a very shy, timid kid. (Red Smith)
The Committee room was almost empty except for a few elderly, small-faced ladies sitting in the rear. (Lillian Hellman)
The smithy stood under the spreading chestnut tree.
Ten red balloons fell from the ceiling.
In the phrase shy, timid kid, you can reorder the adjectives to timid, shy kid without changing the meaning; and you can also join them with and (shy and timid kid). Therefore, you would put a comma between the two adjectives.
A safe practice is to omit the comma with numerals and with the common adjectives of size and age:
The little old lady
A large red-haired girl
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Four tiny black dogs
· Commas can be used to set off adjectives in special ways. Many contemporary writers use adjectives somewhat more freely than the examples shown indicate. They may let adjectives follow the nouns they modify, or they may separate them from the nouns (still within the same sentence). Or, they may place adjectives before the noun but set them off in some way. The result is a particularly modern rhythm. This rhythm is marked by commas.
It was a Texas barbecue, Houston-style. (Tom Wolfe)
The few girls who managed it were never quite the same again, a little more defiant, a little more impudent. (Kate Simon)
I remember the emeralds in shop window, lying casually in trays, all of them oddly pale at the center, somehow watered, cold at the very heart where one expects the fire. (Joan Didion)
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Use commas where necessary.
1. an unusually heavy suitcase.
2. a large red and yellow leaf.
3. a sick baby elephant.
4. a long difficult novel.
5. a very important business letter.
6. a soft old comfortable chair.
7. some beautiful delicate flowers.
8. an exciting children’s program.
9. a brand-new expensive sports car.
10. a difficult Russian class.
11.few modern office buildings.
12. a large winter coat.
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Insert commas as necessary to separate items in series in the following sentences.
1. Neither dogs snakes bees nor dragons frighten her.
2. Seals whales dogs lions and horses are all mammals.
3. Mammals are warm-blooded vertebrates that bear live young nurse them and usually have fur.
4. Seals are mammals but lizards and snakes and iguanas are reptiles and newts and salamanders are amphibians.
5. Amphibians also include frogs and toads.
6. Eagles geese ostriches turkeys chickens and ducks are classified as birds.
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Insert commas as necessary to separate items in series in the following sentences.
1. Our fire escapes were densely inhabited by mops short lines of washed socks geranium plants boxes of seltzer bottles and occasional dramatic scenes. (Kate Simon)
2. Meteorologists were commissioned to make detailed portraits of New Jersey’s coastal temperatures humidity precipitation fogs thunderstorms tornado potentialities and “probable maximum hurricanes.” (John McPhee)
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3. She had no confidence in books written in English paid almost nothing for them and sold them for a small and quick profit. (Ernest Hemingway on Sylvia Beach)
4. It used to be understood that no matter how low your estimate of the public intelligence was how greedily you courted success or how much you debased your material in order to popularize it, you nevertheless tried to give the audience something. (Pauline Kael on contemporary movies)
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Insert commas in the following sentences:
1. He felt cut off from them by age by understanding by sensibility by technology and by his need to measure himself against the mirror of other men's appreciation. (Ralph Ellison)
2. The ox was solid black stood five feet high at the shoulder had a five-foot span of horns and must have weighed 1,200 pounds on the hoof. (Richard B. Lee)
3. Nothing is more essential to intelligent profitable reading than sensitivity to connotation. (Richard Altick)
4. She was wearing a full-skirted low-cut velvet gown.
5. Under the circumstances, only an intelligent discreet and experienced official should be assigned to the case.
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