Order of adjectives

English as a Second Language English Vocabulary, Grammar and Idioms
1

A little bit of help here…Can anyone tell me (please) :roll: :roll: :roll: the order of adjectives in a sentence!
val. colour, form,age…??? :oops: :oops: :oops:
1000tx

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2

We start with : an opinion: handsome,nice ,awuful…
2.Size:small , huge…
3.Age:young,old…
4.Shape:round,narraw…
5.Colour:blue…
6.Origin:American,Arabian…
7.Material:wooden,cotton…

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I think you are mistaken. Adverbs have order. As for adjectives you may use as you prefer. I hope you will agree with me that there should be some sense in the way in which we you use them or combine them. A man may be bright and handsome. A lady may be beautiful and idiotic or she may be idiotic and beautiful. She may also be bautiful but idiotic. All these lie in your hands and you use the adjectives as you prefer to convey your meaning.

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I dont know maybe you are right I have been taught that there is a rule for how we order the adjectives.. of course there should be some sense in the way we combine them but I think its just in the first one I mean the opinion I may say A beautiful idiot or An idiot beatiful girl, but can I say a black beatiful car ? can I put the colour before my opinion when describing something or someone?
If you know tell me

5

Hi there,
I’ve read your replies about this questions…let me tell you…I do agree with you Ms. Sandy that we have just been taught this rule. I even used to remember it by the word “SASCOM” the first letter of each word in the list. However…I don’t remember that I’ve thought about this rule while writing. You know…I just write how I need the adjective to sound like. But I should admit that we must follow rules as well.
Take care all of you :slight_smile:
Mr. Mohammed Shehata

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“…there should be some sense in the way in which we you use them or combine them.” Adjectives require only this. best of luck, nanucbe

7

A beautiful idiot - I feel this should be a handsome idiot,since I have an innate feeling that you refer to a man.
An idiot beatiful girl - I feel this construction wrong. This may be rewritten: an idiotic beautiful girl a black beatiful car : this combination is unacceptable and some common sense would have suggested a change to ‘a beautiful black car.’ I feel this car can also be ‘a black beauty’. The word 'beauty’ here is a noun.
best of luck, nanucbe

8

Hello, Chris,

Adjective order is a bit confusing, and not all of the texts completely agree 100%, but below is a common ranking. As I mentioned, this order isn’t completely fixed, and you’ll find that ‘age’ in particular seems to float around a bit, sometimes coming in a different order than I’ve listed here.

These may seem arbitrary, but get them out of order and they’ll sound odd to a native speaker, although your overall meaning won’t be at all changed.


Opinion-Size-Age-Shape-Color-Origin-Material

Opinion is a subjective judgment, such as beautiful, ugly, worthless, etc.
Size examples would be small, huge, large, tiny, etc.
Age examples include old, young, ancient, new, etc.
Shape covers examples such as round, square, oblong, etc.
Color examples are of course covered by any of your colors.
Origin refers to the country of origin, such as Italian, Japanese, Russian, Greek, etc.
Material refers to what the noun is made of, such as wood, plastic, metal, cloth, etc.

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Ok…thanks…you enlighted my mind :wink: :shock:

10

Nice discussion. best of luck nanucbe.

11

omg is this question really in 2009 the year that i was born what!?

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12

Hi, welcome to our forum :wink: Yes, this question was posted in 2009, 6 years after our forum was launched.

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13

Wow, the idea of 2009-year-born people writing here scares the hell out of me! :rofl: Am I that old?..

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