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How does comma placement work in a sentence with adjectives joined with something like "but"? For example, "A small but juicy fruit."

And what about a more complex example, like "A small but juicy tropical fruit."

Jenny Shoars
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    These are not sentences, but, given the right context, allowable sentence fragments. I wouldn't use a comma in them (and I'd have to think of a reason to include 'but'). – Edwin Ashworth Apr 02 '14 at 21:19

2 Answers2

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You might think it should be:

(It was) a small, but juicy, fruit.

It need not be so.

But is a conjunction, and when used to join two standalone sentences, you "should" put a comma before it.

Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you fight with your neighbor. It makes you shoot at your landlord, but it makes you miss him.

Your use of but doesn't join two separate sentences. So you have actually punctuated it perfectly:

(It is) a small but juicy (tropical) fruit.

If you added adjectives which did not modify each other, you might need a comma:

It was a small but heavy, juicy tropical fruit. But some people would not use a comma there.

anongoodnurse
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For the sentence you provided, you don't need a comma. Grammatically, the word "but" functions something like a comma, providing a separation of ideas.

If you were to use a comma in the sentence, you would remove the word "but" like this: "a small, but juicy fruit."

However, in the sentence you provided, "A small but juicy fruit.", you are using the word "but" incorrectly. "But" should indicate something unexpected or an opposing adjective. An example would be, "A small but noisy group of people." You would expect a small group of people to be quieter, so the "but" helps to clarify that the fact that they are noisy is noteworthy. Therefore, in your example, removing the word "but" and using a comma to separate the adjectives would be recommended.

In your second example, similar rules apply except that you added an additional adjective so you will need some extra commas since you now have a list of adjectives for your fruit: "A small, but juicy, tropical fruit.", or rather: "A small, juicy, tropical fruit."

user70868
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