Introduction
The worldwide popularity of the English language is not based on how easy it is to learn. On the contrary, even native speakers make a lot of mistakes when speaking and writing English.
Adjectives are words used to describe nouns. Most of the time, we put adjectives before the noun. The order of correctly placing these attributive adjectives is very particular in English, and it is a way in which non-natives can give themselves away in written language.
Problems with the order of adjectives
Consider the following examples:
1. Mandy had a old black german why.
2. Peter new blue jersey got dirty in the mud.
In essence, there is nothing wrong with these sentences. They make a lot of sense, except that they ‘sound’ bad to an educated English speaker. This is because in English, in addition to some freedom in terms of emphasis, the order of adjectives must be followed quite strictly.
The order of the adjectives
Let’s say you want to describe a car. While it’s not feasible that you’d need to use more than 4 adjectives together to describe it, there’s no reason you can’t use up to 8 adjectives in a row. The problem is putting those words in the correct order to meet the demands of the English language.
It is helpful to group the adjectives you want to use.
A. Objective adjectives come first.
one. Opinion adjectives: these adjectives explain your feelings towards the noun or your observations of the noun. Your opinion about this noun may not be the same as that of others. Opinion adjectives include nice, pretty, silly, ridiculous, delicious, expensive.
Even opinion adjectives have a particular order. First come the general opinion adjectives, then the specific opinion adjectives. General opinion adjectives include good, bad, nice, unpleasant, wonderful, and terrible. Specific opinion adjectives describe a finite range of nouns: food (eg, delicious), furniture and buildings (eg, well-designed), and people and animals (eg, clever).
B. Then come some objective adjectives that describe the physical characteristics of the noun.
2. size adjectives: describes how big or small a noun is. Some examples: gigantic, tiny, huge
3. old adjectives: describes the age of the noun. Some examples are young, old, ancient, antediluvian.
Four. adjectives form: describe the form of the noun. Some examples are round, oblong, triangular, cylindrical.
5. Color adjectives: describe the color of the noun, such as black, white, bluish, tinged with orange.
C. Now comes a variety of adjectives in relation to the origin, material, and purpose of the noun.
6. Origin adjectives: An origin adjective describes the origin or source of the noun, such as Australian, Northern, Danish.
7. material adjectives: A material adjective describes what the noun is made of. Material adjectives include metal, cardboard, glass, plastic.
8. Purpose or qualify adjectives: These adjectives describe what the noun can be used for. These adjectives often end with ‘-ing’, such as sleep (bag), bake (can), cut (board), laugh (gas) or can be qualifying nouns (e.g. baby + carriage, ice cream + cream, Easter + little bunny) .
Finally, when you put all these different adjectives together in the correct order in English, you can end up with a description as ridiculous, but grammatically correct, as this one:
I bought a gorgeous new shiny maroon oval Swedish carbon fiber race car yesterday.
Note the lack of commas in this sentence. Commas are not required when the adjectives used do not have a similar meaning and each add something different to the description of the noun. These adjectives are called cumulative adjectives.
Of course, sometimes we must change the order to give emphasis to a particular emphasis. Consider reversing the order of the adjectives and using the comma for greater effect in the following sentence:
He was terrified of the big ugly dog. [The ugliness of the dog is less important to the writer than its size.]
Sometimes adjectives need to be placed next to each other simply because they are linked together. Consider the placement of faded Y silver in the following award:
Last night I found a small, faded silver Cuban coin under my bed.
All in all, the order of adjectives is one of the most difficult concepts found in English. Always read your written work and find any groups of adjectives you have used. Check that the order of your adjectives follows the pattern presented above, and if it doesn’t, make sure you have a good reason for going outside the rules.
