Commas separating adjectives to describe mathematical objects.

Question

Is there a convention which rules that in mathematics an object with some properties should be referred to as a

"property 1 property 2 property 3 ...object"

rather than a

"property 1, property 2, property 3, ...object"?

Specific example is an "oriented compact smooth manifold". By googling this question I found that it would appear the convention is without commas, but I could not find a source confirming that it actually was.

Can someone confirm this is the correct convention, and perhaps from which organization the convention comes from?

I hope this falls within the bounds of MathStack; although it is obviously not about mathematics per se, I'm guessing nearly everyone on this site has written something like what I'm asking about!

Answer 1

This has nothing to do with mathematics or the mathematical objects in question.

Note that in this case compact, smooth and even oriented are all adjectives.

I forward you to the concepts cumulative adjective and coordinate adjective.

What's below was copied from this link.

This link from English SE should also be useful.

Coordinate Adjectives

These are adjectives that separately modify a noun. Their order can be scrambled and they can be joined by and. A comma is needed to separate each coordinate adjective. But if there is a the word and no comma is needed.

Example: While strolling in the woods, they found a strange, mysterious and frightened child.

Cumulative Adjectives

When adjectives pile up to jointly describe the noun and need to be arranged in a specific order, they are called cumulative adjectives. No commas are needed to separate the adjectives.

Example: He bought a wonderful old French car.

Cumulative adjectives generally follow a certain order of arrangement. $$ \begin{array}{c|c|c|c} 1. & \text{Opinion} & \text{good, attractive, beautiful, delicious, }\ldots \\ \hline 2. &\text{Size} & \text{large, small, enormous, }\ldots \\ 3. & \hline \text{Age} & \text{old, new, modern, young, }\ldots \\ \hline 4. & \text{Length or shape} & \text{long, short, square, round, }\ldots\\ \hline 5. & \text{Color} & \text{red, blue, green, }\ldots\\ \hline 6. & \text{Origin (nationality, religion)} & \text{American, French, Muslim, Christian, }\ldots \\ \hline 7. &\text{Material} & \text{plastic, woolen, wooden, cotton, }\ldots \\ \hline 8. & \text{Purpose} & \text{electric (wire) , tennis (shirt), }\ldots \end{array}$$