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I don't know if this will be helpful for anyone, but I just wrote up a mini-lesson on when to use commas between adjectives that precede a noun. Figured it couldn't hurt to share it here, as it's a topic I find myself puzzling over sometimes during editing.
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Sometimes people are taught that whenever you precede a noun with more than one adjective, you put commas between them. That's actually not true. You only put commas between such adjectives if you could replace the comma with "and" without it sounding weird. So ...
I saw a slouching, shifty-eyed American man enter the bar.
The comma between "slouching" and "shifty-eyed" is correct because you could say ...
I saw a slouching and shifty-eyed American man enter the bar.
...without sounding odd. But if you also added a comma before "American," that wouldn't be correct, even though "American" is just another adjective in the list:
I saw a slouching, shifty-eyed and American man enter the bar.
Sounds weird, right? So no comma there.
The other test is whether you can swap the adjectives' order:
I saw a slouching, shifty-eyed American man enter the bar.
I saw a shifty-eyed, slouching American man enter the bar.
Both sound okay, right? So the comma between "slouching" and "shifty-eyed" is correct.
Nerd out: The official way of describing this situation is that only adjectives that are coordinate have commas between them when they precede a noun. Coordinate basically means the adjectives are completely equal in function, and thus their order can be swapped. You can see how "shifty-eyed" and "slouching" are similar in function (they both describe appearance) whereas "American" is getting into a different category (nationality). Often adjectives that fit into unlike categories become subject to English's adjective-ordering conventions. Their order thus can't be changed, and they're not coordinate. These adjectives are called cumulative. So, the rule is that you do put commas between coordinate adjectives, and you don't put commas between cumulative adjectives.
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Sometimes people are taught that whenever you precede a noun with more than one adjective, you put commas between them. That's actually not true. You only put commas between such adjectives if you could replace the comma with "and" without it sounding weird. So ...
I saw a slouching, shifty-eyed American man enter the bar.
The comma between "slouching" and "shifty-eyed" is correct because you could say ...
I saw a slouching and shifty-eyed American man enter the bar.
...without sounding odd. But if you also added a comma before "American," that wouldn't be correct, even though "American" is just another adjective in the list:
I saw a slouching, shifty-eyed and American man enter the bar.
Sounds weird, right? So no comma there.
The other test is whether you can swap the adjectives' order:
I saw a slouching, shifty-eyed American man enter the bar.
I saw a shifty-eyed, slouching American man enter the bar.
Both sound okay, right? So the comma between "slouching" and "shifty-eyed" is correct.
Nerd out: The official way of describing this situation is that only adjectives that are coordinate have commas between them when they precede a noun. Coordinate basically means the adjectives are completely equal in function, and thus their order can be swapped. You can see how "shifty-eyed" and "slouching" are similar in function (they both describe appearance) whereas "American" is getting into a different category (nationality). Often adjectives that fit into unlike categories become subject to English's adjective-ordering conventions. Their order thus can't be changed, and they're not coordinate. These adjectives are called cumulative. So, the rule is that you do put commas between coordinate adjectives, and you don't put commas between cumulative adjectives.