Being a peace-loving guy, I don’t want to pick a fight with the Grammarmatrix, but I believe that her column on commas in the “Redesigning Main Street” issue could be amended.
First of all, she wrote that “when you’re using two adjectives to describe a word, you can separate them with either a comma or a hyphen.” I would say that hyphens connect words instead of separating them, but my serious complaint here is that it gives the misleading impression that one can always simply choose one of the other; use “either,” she says. But “He’s a frugal, industrious Yankee” is surely preferable to “He’s a frugal-industrious Yankee” and “This is a delicious, unusual meatloaf” beats “This is a delicious-unusual meatloaf” all the time, as far as I am concerned. For a third example, consider Ben Conant’s line in his review of The Sessions: “His indomitable, inimitable spirit shines through.” I doubt that our illustrious editor considered writing “His indomitable-inimitable spirit shines through.”
The Grammarnatrix is on target with compound adjectives, as in “Ben ran a well-planned meeting.” But compound adjectives are not usually made up of two adjectives. The hyphen in the example comes between an adverb and an adjective. And in “peace-loving” up there at the start, it joins a noun and an adjective.
The Grammarnator’s conclusion: Be wary of associating hyphens with two adjectives.
I like the third comma, too.
