1. Commas Week 2

2. Rule: Equal Adjectives • Use a comma between equal adjectives. • It was a cold, gloomy day. • The cold, smooth stone felt wonderful under his feet. • She was an angry, bitter woman.

3. Two Tests to determine if they are equal adjectives • Test 1: Can you reverse the order? If you can and it still makes sense, then they are equal adjectives: • He is a strong, healthy man. • He is a healthy, strong man. • Sounds good. Use a comma. • We stayed at an expensive summer resort. • We stayed at a summer expensive resort. • (not equal adjectives, so don’t use a comma)

4. Test 2: Insert an “and” • Put the word “and” between the two adjectives, if it sounds alright, they are equal adjectives. Use a comma. • He is a strong and healthy man. • Sounds ok. Use a comma instead of “and” • We stayed at an expensive and summer resort. • Sounds wrong. No comma needed.

5. Day 1 • Healthy-looking well-dressed pedestrians often look away when they come in contact with ragged penniless street people.

6. Day 2 • What those freshly scrubbed well-groomed people didn’t realize is that with a bit of bad luck, they might also end up homeless.

7. Day 3 • Many of the unwashed undernourished homeless people may have had high-paying management jobs in the city.

8. Day 4 • Perhaps they owned spacious landscaped homes in the suburbs and drove sleek shiny cars. • Any confident successful person today could still face failure tomorrow. • Be careful before judging those who eat in soup kitchens and sleep on dangerous garbage-laden curbsides.

9. Day 5: Quiz • The tall awkward boy and the short graceful teacher argued heatedly about the Knicks game. • Her mother thinks of her as a disorganized chatty child, but she thinks of herself as an artistic articulate adult. • The new brick wall fell over during the windstorm. • The skinny angry cat sprang from the bathtub leaving sopping bubbly puddles across the floor.