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I hate commas - sm

Posted: Apr 12, 2013

The patient is a 29-year-old obese white female. Is there a comma after obese?

no comma - 2bz2sleep

[ In Reply To ..]
No comma

Thank you. My QA has me on edge with the - comma thing lately.

[ In Reply To ..]
.

The way I do that is: - (see message)

[ In Reply To ..]
The patient is a 29-year-old, obese white female.

The "test" I learned to give it is if the sentence makes sense if you switch the adjectives, which this one does (i.e., you could also say, "The patient is an obese, 29-year-old white female"), then you use a comma to separate the adjectives.

The reason you don't use a comma between "obese" and "female" is that the next adjective, "white," is a color. Don't ask me how they came up with that rule, but that's the way I learned it!

An example of a sentence with a color adjective that doesn't get set apart by a comma would be: "Mary would like to purchase a trendy, slenderizing, long black dress." You don't put a comma between "long" and "black." Even though "white" in the medical sentence indicates race, it's still treated as a color.

I realize this is way more than you wanted to know (and you might not even care--LOL), but I thought I'd share the comma rules as I learned them in the Business English class that was part of the MT program I did at a local vo-tech school. We had an outstanding teacher, and, 20 years later, I still remember the rules she taught us. :-)

actually, not quite... - Des

[ In Reply To ..]
The rule is if you can insert the word "and" instead of the comma, then the comma is needed.

Wrong: The patient is an obese AND 29-year-old AND white female.

Correct: the patient is an obese 29-year-old white female.

"Obese" is modifying "29-year-old white female."

The same is true if "obese" and "29-year-old" are switched.

Wrong: The patient is a 29-year-old and obese and white female.

Correct: The patient is a 29-year-old obese white female.

In this version, "29-year-old" is modifying "obese white female."

If I remove "29-year-old," the same still applies.

Wrong: The patient is an obese and white female.

Correct: The patient is an obese white female.

"Obese" is modifying "white female."

REGARDING I HATE COMMAS - MT COMMA QUEEN

[ In Reply To ..]
No

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