Evening, all.

I’m currently having problems with some commas and would appreciate any advice or opinions that might be forthcoming.

1. The slim weasel-like man slunk into the room behind them.

2. The slim, weasel-like man slunk into the room behind them.

Which one is correct? I was always taught that no 2 was right – whenever you use more than one adjective you should separate them with a comma – but looking at it on the page it just seems odd. I don’t know, perhaps I’ve just been looking at it for too long. I know I could just take out the word ‘slim’ and I may actually do that, but this is something I have done more than once in my writing, so it would be good to know for other occasions!

Many thanks for all help offered.

Snowcat

Strictly speaking, I think the second one is correct. However, I definitely think you should take out ‘slim’… have you ever seen a fat weasel?

Hi Snowcat

I know what you mean, a lot of times a comma hinders the flow and can look and feel old-fashioned. I guess (as many people have said over in the debate on passive/active) that it's a matter of what works best for the piece.

Here I think there's problem with number one cos there's a tiny sense in it that the man is like a slim weasel...

Pete

<Added>

Cross-posted with you Dee!

Thanks for the advice, Dee and Pete, much appreciated. And you're quite right, Dee, chubby weasels are not often seen around these parts - or any parts, for that matter!

Hindering the flow of the sentence was exactly the problem in this case, Pete, but I usually find I have the opposite problem - I'm chucking in commas all over the place, only to have to go back and prune them all out again afterwards!

And of course, my other comma-related issue is whether or not you can/should use one before ‘but’ or 'and'. I’m sure you shouldn’t, but sometimes I really want to. Oh. Well - see? And I didn’t even see that one coming until after my fingers had hit the relevant keys! Although I have a feeling that using a comma before 'but' is more acceptable than using one before 'and'...

Snowcat

Hi Snowcat

Some writer said -might have been Evelyn Waugh- that writers use surplus commas when they aren't capable of crafting a sentence in such a way that it has the rhythm the writer wants.

Which I quite like.

Pete

I'm sure that's right in many cases, Pete. I often find that the best way to correct a sentence with loads of commas is not just to simply take them out, but to do some major surgery on the whole sentence - a full reconstruction is not unknown!

Sometimes, though, it's literally a case of writing just as I think, with a comma inserted every time my mental 'voice' has to pause. This usually results in one of three outcomes at re-reading time:

a. I leave it alone. (Hey, if I needed to breathe there, then I'm sure others will too!)
b. I take out a few commas but leave the sentence the same. (Breathe? Pah! Who needs to breathe?)
c. I change the one long, comma-filled sentence into two or, very occasionally, more shorter ones. (Best of both worlds, probably. There's breathing, but not too much of it!)

Certainly number 2, but yes, 'slim' is superfluous anyway.

I too find that I put commas in where I would want them for reading aloud purposes, but 'correct' punctuation runs by rules. Basically, spoken English and written English are two different systems, and in writing fiction, we're often trying to express one by means of the other.

Emma

That's very true, Emma, and probably the reason behind a vast percentage of required editing. Even though 'correct' punctuation is less rigidly adhered to these days, many people can still tell that something isn't quite right, even if they're not entirely certain what that something is.

Snowcat