Using adjectives
In my grammar courses, I enjoy taking ‘ordinary’ words and making them appear extraordinary.
Take adjectives, for example.
Adjectives are one of the cinderellas of parts of speech (word classes). Nouns and
verbs enjoy the limelight, while adjectives seem to be ignored. Adjectives are describing
words: a happy face, a tall man, the meal was delicious.
At school, if we used too many adjectives we may have been taught to follow Mark
Twain’s advice:
‘As to the adjective: when in doubt, strike it out’ (Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson,
1894)
Most adjectives can come before a noun: a red sweater; an immense
amount of money,
and after a verb: the bus is red; the potential is immense.
However, some e.g., afraid, asleep, can only come after a verb; e.g.: I am afraid (not: the afraid boy);
The baby is asleep
(not: the asleep baby). Moreover, some can only come before a
noun, e.g.,
utter, sheer: the sheer volume of traffic (not: the volume of
traffic is sheer); That is utter nonsense (not: the nonsense is
utter). (The cliff is sheer, a sheer cliff is a different sense of sheer).
The order of adjectives
Here’s an interesting puzzle for you. Imagine you’ve bought a car. It’s a classic
and it’s American, old, silver and big. What order would you put those adjectives
in?
American old classic silver big
Old silver classic big American
Silver big classic American old
Actually, the answer is: A big old silver American classic car. The conventional
order of adjectives is: adjectives of size, age, colour, nationality, adjectives
derive from nouns.
So, as native speakers, we have internalised this rule.
This is just one of the fascinating aspects of English that I discuss on my courses.
If you enjoy these tasters, email me to come and lead a course for you.
* * *
Remember that if you regularly write for more than an hour a day,
you could benefit from brushing up on your skills in writing
and editing . For full details of my open public courses held in London
and also details of tailor-made courses for your company or organization, see my
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I look forward to hearing from you.
With best wishes.
Martin