I’m no grammar nerd but I think the comma makes “sex” an adjective, which should make me able to say that the drug-infested dens are “sex”.
this says a comma only splits coordinate adjectives,which can be swapped and where the latter does not form a common union with the noun, which means that even if “sex” were an adjective, the comma implies it can be swapped to make “sex, drug-infested dens” (single noun phrase), which it can’t because sex is not an adjective.
Edit: this proof by contradiction doesn’t quite work because adjectives have a preferred order by category of what they mean, and being coordinate doesn’t mean they are in the same category.
the comma definitely increases the humour for me
I’m no grammar nerd but I think the comma makes “sex” an adjective, which should make me able to say that the drug-infested dens are “sex”. this says a comma only splits coordinate adjectives,
which can be swapped andwhere the latter does not form a common union with the noun, which means that even if “sex” were an adjective, the comma implies it can be swapped to make “sex, drug-infested dens” (single noun phrase), which it can’t because sex is not an adjective.Edit: this proof by contradiction doesn’t quite work because adjectives have a preferred order by category of what they mean, and being coordinate doesn’t mean they are in the same category.