The17pointscale  +  188834 Thu, 26 Jan 06 02:41 AM how would you punctuate the following sentences? i'm the most befuddled by the first one: ...will lead to gene expression changes in the blood lymphocytes of healthy, non-smoking, Caucasian male volunteers. and ...twenty healthy, non-smoking male volunteers between the ages of ...   thanks, Andrew ps. i am delighted to have found this grammar forum. i'm all grins.   The17pointscale Joined on Thu, Jan 26 2006 Seattle Junior Member 84 Grammar, Commas

	Waïti  +  188957 Thu, 26 Jan 06 01:41 PM It seems to me both sentences follow the same pattern in that all the adjectives to 'male volunteers' but the last one are followed by a comma ; which would be the expected punctuation in my opinion. 'healthy, non-smoking, caucasian male volunteers' 'healthy, non-smoking male volunteers' Personally they both look and sound good to me... And same for the following one : 'healthy, non-smoking, caucasian, professional male volunteers' Now it would be a different story if you were to say : 'healthy, non-smoking, caucasian, young urban professional male volunteers'. But this is because 'young urban professional' is now a whole expression that you don't want to 'slice' with commas. Let's wait to see what forum gurus have to say here... Waïti. Waïti Joined on Thu, Aug 25 2005 Regular Member 568 Commas, Punctuation

	rvw  +  188966 Thu, 26 Jan 06 02:18 PM Welcome, Andrew! In both cases I would use commas between all of  the adjectives preceding volunteers. For clarity, I would hyphenate gene-expression; the changes are not gene changes or expression changes, but gene-expression changes.  Also, nonsmoking is not hyphenated. -...will lead to gene-expression changes in the blood lymphocytes of healthy,  nonsmoking,  Caucasian,  male volunteers. -...twenty healthy,  nonsmoking,  male volunteers between the ages of .... The author may have thought that male volunteer is a semantic unit.  But I think that, in this context, male is the same sort of adjective as the others. A comma is not placed after twenty because it applies to the whole phrase [healthy, nonsmoking, male volunteers between the ages of ....] If your befuddlement concerns commas between adjectives in a series, that is normal punctuation.  From Webster's Third New International Dictionary:  Modifying words in an open series preceding a noun are often separated and distinguished in speech by pauses and in writing by commas <a rural,  agricultural,  idyllic  life>  <journalistic,  literary,  popular  publications>. rvw Joined on Sun, Nov 28 2004 Woodstock, Georgia, USA Full Member 350 Nouns, Commas, Punctuation

	The17pointscale  +  191337 Wed, 01 Feb 06 08:06 AM thanks! i was befuddled because everywhere i looked guides told me that the best way to determine punctuation in a series of adjectives was to see if the adjective order was interchangeable or whether or not various adjectives were linked. generally speaking that might be fine, but i was stumped; it seemed so subjective. -andrew The17pointscale Commas, Punctuation