Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Comma, No Comma?


How about this one?


a good old-fashioned ice cream truck


or

a good, old-fashioned ice cream truck



(style is: no hyphen in "ice cream," btw)


That comma looks SO funny to me--why?

6 comments:

Grammarian@mindspring.com said...

I vote for no comma in this one. It's not a good ice cream truck and also an old-fashioned ice cream truck, it's a good-old-fashioned ice cream truck. It strikes me as different.

TootsNYC said...

So, GIMC, would you suggest all hyphens?

(I had to let it go; it would have cost money to change it, and I didn't spot it sooner)

Grammarian@mindspring.com said...

Start with the hyphens and you'll be doing the N-dash and M-dash thing before you turn around.

TootsNYC said...

True! And unfortunately, it won't make your text very dashing.

Grammarian@mindspring.com said...

Lynne Truss, of Eats, Shoots and Leaves fame, had a BBC radio series called Cutting a Dash.

JD (The Engine Room) said...

I'd opt for no commas, one hyphen, as in your top suggestion, for the reason that GIMC gives.