2015-08-04 Writing: order of adjectives

Greg Malivuk
[email protected]
http://www.pastebin.com/u/gmalivuk
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poor little black dog (okay)
poor black little dog (WRONG)
little poor black dog (WRONG)
black poor little dog (WRONG)
etc.

(first quantifiers and numbers, like “three” or “several”)

OSASCCOM:
Opinion: poor, beautiful, interesting, stupid
Size: little, big, tall, short, fat, thin
Age: young, old, new, senior, juvenile
Shape: round, square, circular, straight, curved, flat
Condition: dry, hungry, cold, broken
Color: black, blue, red-orange, blue-green, sky blue
Origin: Guatemalan, European, Californian, Bostonian, Taiwanese, Spanish, British
Material: wood, wooden, metal, metallic, cotton, iron, plastic, leather

(then compound nouns like “shoe store”)
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my three ugly big new round broken white Italian marble breakfast tables
(We would never use this many, usually two or three is more common.)
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These are called cumulative adjectives (they are from separate categories and have a specific order).

Coordinate adjectives are from the same category, and the order isn’t (as) important:
wet, cold, and hungry dog (okay)
hungry, wet, and cold dog (okay)
cold, wet, and hungry dog (okay)
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With a partner, add the adjectives to the sentences on p. 124