Can you help with the punctuation in this sentence?

Question

A horrible, ugly old woman is leaning over him as he awakens and declares in a hot, sweaty voice "A Knight!" then scurries away, into the darkness.

Is that correct?

Answer 1

This question is essentially about comma use - and I actually had to do a fair bit of research before honestly being able to answer this with certainty!

To answer your question: the punctuation is NEARLY right.

I think the sentence's meaning becomes a little unclear as it is so long, so I have separated it into two sentences (otherwise the reader is not sure whether it is the woman or the man who says "A knight!")

"A horrible, ugly old woman is leaning over him as he awakens. She declares in a hot, sweaty voice, "A knight!" then scurries away into the darkness."

The changes I have made are:

- Splitting the sentence into two sentences

- Adding a comma after the introductory clause (the bit before the direct speech)

- Removing the comma following "away"

- Changing the initial letter of "knight" into lowercase (but you may have used a capital letter intentionally - perhaps you are writing a story in which a specific type of knight exists etc. - so this might be irrelevant!)

You have used the commas after "horrible" and "hot" correctly. When using commas to separate adjectives (describing words), the tests to see whether one is required are as follows:

- Does the sentence still make sense if I change the order of the adjectives?

- Does the sentence still make sense if I place an "and" between the two adjectives?

Let's start with "a hot, sweaty voice":

- Yes, it makes sense if written as "a sweaty, hot voice"

- Yes, it makes sense if written as "a hot and sweaty voice"

So, it passed both tests and it is therefore appropriate to put a comma between these adjectives!

As for the "horrible, ugly old woman" - this is slightly trickier!

- Firstly, the order of "horrible" and "ugly" can be changed and the sentence still makes sense:

"Ugly, horrible old woman"

- Secondly, "horrible and ugly" makes sense, too (i.e. the insertion of "and" does not alter the sentence's meaning)

*However*, the positioning of the word "old" is less flexible. *Technically* it makes sense to write "A horrible, ugly and old woman", but it sounds quite stilted. This is because age-related adjectives generally immediately precede nouns (e.g. "old woman", "young man", "middle-aged doctor" etc.) It is more conventional to consider the word "old" as being almost attached to the word "woman."

Some examples of similar situations include:

- "Green Christmas tree"

and

- "Red fire truck"

We never say "Christmas green tree" or "fire red truck" because each noun's adjective can be thought of as being 'attached' to the noun. (Christmas is 'attached' to tree, fire is 'attached' to truck.)

In almost the same way, "old" is attached to "woman". If we think of "horrible, ugly" as one unit, and "old woman" as the other, then we can once again apply the comma test to see what to do:

"A horrible, ugly and old woman" - that does not sound particularly good (for the previously mentioned reasons) - and therefore, it should NOT take a comma. So you were right!

It is also necessary to use a comma after an introductory clause (such as "she said" or "she declares" or "she declares in a hot, sweaty voice"), before direct speech (in this example, "A knight!") This is just a grammatical convention.

Anyway, sorry for all that ranting, but I thought it might make more sense if I gave actual reasons for my editing of your sentence.

Hope this helps/is of some interest (and if this is a story, good luck with it!)

Answer 2

no comma after away

Answer 3

I'm pretty sure there should be another comma after ugly, the t in then should be capitalized, and there shouldn't be a comma after away.

Answer 4

There is no comma after ugly.  The phrase is 'ugly old woman'.  

Based on the construction, it appears that "he" is declaring in a hot, sweaty voice.  

So I think this needs to be re-written:

As he awakens, he sees a horrible, ugly old woman leaning over him.  She declares in a hot, sweaty voice, "A knight!"  Then she scurries away into the darkness.