Is the comma optional?

Question

Hey. Is the comma optional in this sentence?I have had a long, hard day at school.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

GPY · Answer

Properly you should include the comma. (There are lots of explanations of the rules for this on various websites, so I won't repeat it all here. Search for e.g. commas with adjectives.)

It is not hard to find instances of "long hard day" without the comma even in published works. Sometimes this might be unconscious (writer did not consider that a comma might be necessary); I think that sometimes it could be intentional because people think the comma looks fussy and disrupts the flow. My impression is that, at least with pairs of adjectives, commas are increasingly omitted where traditionally they would have been seen as necessary.

Is the comma optional?

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