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Even if you never diagrammed sentences in English class; even if you never felt like you “got” grammar; even if you don’t know anything about linguistics: I’m betting you know more than you think.
Take adjective order, for instance. It turns out there’s a pretty set way they’re supposed to flow in a sentence. Don’t believe me? Well, there’s a reason Christopher Robin doesn’t say, “Old silly bear.” And what if Prince had written a song called “Red Little Corvette?” Or what if Dorothy and her friends had followed the Brick Yellow Road?
Granted, it’s not common for a sentence to have more than three adjectives modifying any given noun. But in theory, I could tell you about my three adorable little old round pink French plush pigs, and you’d follow me just fine. But if I shifted those words around—my French round little pink plush three old adorable pigs—it wouldn’t make much sense (and even less if I didn’t put “my” first).
My plush pig sentence will give you clues about the order of adjectives. And get this: these principles hold true for most languages, not just English—which tells linguists quite a bit about the way our brains organize information. Here’s the typical order:
Determiner (a, the, her)
Quantity or number (several, four)
Quality or opinion (mediocre, boring)
Size (huge, minuscule)
Age (fifty-year-old, ancient)
Shape (square, octagonal)
Color (purple, beige)
Origin or proper adjective (Spanish, Catholic)
Material or purpose (velvet, skating)
There’s some flexibility in the middle of the list; you can sometimes shift size, age, shape, and color. And if you’re putting together adjectives of the same type, like several opinions (as in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day), you can pretty much move them around as you like.
There are a few exceptions. One of the most famous is the Big, Bad Wolf. Size, then opinion is unusual—but we’re so used to it that it sounds right. (And it also follows a different rule about the order of vowel sounds, which sound best when they’re I-A-O, as in hip-hop or tick-tock or mishmash.)
Another exception: “Little darling, it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter,” sings George Harrison in “Here Comes the Sun.” It’s a vivid statement, and the words fit the music so perfectly that you might go your whole life without realizing that the adjectives modifying “winter” aren’t in the usual order.
But I believe these exceptions prove the rule. Consider that the closer adjectives get to the noun, generally the more essential or lasting the characteristic. The winter might be short or warm, but the important thing about it to George is that it’s been lonely. The notorious wolf was presumably bad even when he was a pup. I will always be Mormon; I was when I was young, and I’ll still be even when I’m ancient.
Now, don’t be fooled by adjectives acting as adverbs. There can be an alleged criminal. There can be an American criminal. In these sentences, “alleged” and “American” are both adjectives. But an alleged American criminal is different than an American alleged criminal. In the former, “alleged” is modifying “American,” not “criminal”—and any word modifying an adjective is functioning as an adverb.
If you’ve read this far, bless you. I realize that the intricacies of language aren’t as fascinating to everyone as they are to me. (Don’t get me started on my list of adjectives ending in “-id.”) But next time you watch Twelve Angry Men or The Thin Red Line; or read A Thousand Splendid Suns or Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator; or listen to “Itsy-Bitsy Teenie-Weenie Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini” or “99 Red Balloons,” think of me and the exciting, enormous, venerable, universal order of adjectives.