A similar relation is seen when the first noun in a sentence like the above is followed by an adjective. The relation is regular, and calls for no mark:
76-1. They called John Smith wise.
In some cases the relation may be more idiomatic than regular, the mark being omitted because there is no real need for its use. The next sentence exhibits such relationship:
77. I myself will undertake the work.
A “LONG” SUBJECT
When a subject is composed of two or more words, and these words do not readily group themselves, a comma may be helpful to group them as a subject. This failure of words to fall readily into a group is generally due to one of three causes: the subject may be somewhat long and contain marks of punctuation, or it may end with a word that seems itself to sustain grammatical and sense relation with the word or words following it, or it may end with a verb. In either of such cases the comma serves to show the end of the subject; and its use is therefore helpful punctuation:
78. Whatever is, is right.
79. He that sees a building as a common spectator, contents himself with speaking of it in the most general terms.
The use of the comma after “spectator” simply warns the reader that “the spectator contents himself” is not the meaning of the language at this point. The comma disconnects “spectator” and “contents,” just as the comma disconnects certain words in Sentence 1-1. Thus the punctuation of this sentence depends upon the fundamental principle of grouping and disjunction.
This principle also explains the value of a comma at the end of several subject-nouns not connected by a conjunction:
80. Ease, indulgence, luxury, sloth, are the sources of misery.