Compare these two sentences:
- They visited a beautiful, decorated house.
- They visited a beautiful medieval house.
The adjectives in the first sentence (beautiful, decorated) have a comma between them because they talk about the same thing. They both talk about how something looks. They are called co-ordinate adjectives.
The adjectives in the second sentence (beautiful, medieval) don’t have a comma between them because they don’t talk about the same thing. Beautiful talks about how something looks. Medieval talks about the age of something. They are called cumulative adjectives.
There are two test to help you decide if you need a comma or not between adjectives.
Test One
Replace the comma with the word and. If the sentence makes sense then a comma is needed.
- They visited a beautiful, decorated house.
They visited a beautiful and decorated house.
(makes sense/comma needed) - They visited a beautiful medieval house.
They visited a beautiful and medieval house.
(doesn’t make sense/no comma)
Test Two
Reverse the order of the adjectives. If the sentence makes sense then a comma is needed.
- They visited a beautiful, decorated house.
They visited a decorated, beautiful house.
(makes sense/comma needed) - They visited a beautiful medieval house
They visited a medieval beautiful house
(doesn’t make sense/no comma)
When an adjective is repeated, a comma separates the repeated word.
- I want to go somewhere far, far away.
There is never a comma between the last adjective and the noun it refers to.
They visited a beautiful, decorated, house.
They visited a beautiful, decorated house.
