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Two items in a list

by cbenk121 » Wed Jan 05, 2011 1:24 pm
Hey all,

I was at work today, and came across the following sentence.

"The company has asked for strategic, structured integration support to help the company realize the full value of anticipated synergies"

Is it grammatically correct to have the comma between strategic & structured (i.e., a list of two items)? I think it is, but it sounds strange to my ear. I'd rather put "and" instead of the comma, but the comma is "da boss's" edits, so oh well...:)
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by VivianKerr » Wed Jan 05, 2011 1:53 pm
Your boss is right on this one. The comma is grammatically correct. Here's why:

"strategic" and "structured" as called "coordinate adjectives" because they modify the same noun in the same way. You can always separate coordinate adjectives with commas. How do you know if you have coordinate adjectives?

(1) If you can replace the comma with the word "and"

(2) If you can reverse the order of the adjectives and keep the same meaning

If you can do both of those things, then the comma works!

-Vivian
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by cbenk121 » Wed Jan 05, 2011 3:11 pm
VivianKerr wrote:Your boss is right on this one. The comma is grammatically correct. Here's why:

"strategic" and "structured" as called "coordinate adjectives" because they modify the same noun in the same way. You can always separate coordinate adjectives with commas. How do you know if you have coordinate adjectives?

(1) If you can replace the comma with the word "and"

(2) If you can reverse the order of the adjectives and keep the same meaning

If you can do both of those things, then the comma works!

-Vivian
Ok - so you could replace the comma with "and" - both are grammatically correct.

Let's amp things up a bit. Let's say you have three items in the list.

"The company has asked for strategic, structured, and comprehensive integration support to help the company realize the full value of anticipated synergies"

Now, the question is, is there a comma after "structured"? My guess is that there is (as I wrote above) because...

1) you could replace all of the commas with "and"

2) you could change the order and it doesn't change overall meaning
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by VivianKerr » Thu Jan 06, 2011 12:14 pm
Careful. New way of using adjectives = new rules.

When you have 3 adjectives in the form "___, ____, and ____" it becomes a "series," so those coordinate adjectives rules do not apply.

"The company has asked for strategic, structured, and comprehensive integration support to help the company realize the full value of anticipated synergies"

The comma before the conjunction in a serial is called a "serial comma" or an "Oxford comma" and there is actually quite a lively debate about its "correctness." It basically just comes down to personal preference. I, personally, like it! :)

You might find its Wiki entry fun to read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma
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