The Grammar Rule You Don't Know You Know
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- Опубліковано 30 бер 2023
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SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Cambridge Adjective Order: dictionary.cambridge.org/gram...
Mark Forsyth’s Adjective Order: www.theguardian.com/commentis...
Grammarly Adjective Order: www.grammarly.com/blog/adject...
Reduplication: www.macmillandictionaryblog.co...
Ablaut Reduplication: aceseditors.org/news/2020/why...
Did you know about this rule?
I did have an idea from French as the BAGS (Beauty, Age, Goodness and Size) adjectives go before the noun and the rest go after. They go in a similar order in English.
The rule that baffle thousands of English learners' mind every year (at least here in Vietnam).
Yes. (Not) strangely enough, I was taught of this rule. Once. I event have the chart somewhere buried among papers. I cannot say I remember it perfectly. To be fair, it was very late in course, so I haven't had much conscious experience of using it.
Sadly yes. Had to learn the whole thing for my English lessons (not native so that is probably why)
yes...but I'm probably on the older end of your audience. And I was educated in 3 different countries with teachers from both the UK and the US (military brat) so who knows when, why or how I learned this.
Strangely, even J.R.R. Tolkien didn't know a reason. When as a child, he tried to write a story about dragons, and his mother said, it should be "a big green dragon", not "a green big dragon", and that buffled him. And that's why he dropped writing for a while and excelled in language (at least that's what he claimed 😅).
In German we use the vocals follow a e i o u, never i a e ... Crazy Brits! 😮
Buffled?
@@Spiklething yes, bifled
No, the Story was "The Green Great Dragon," and his mother corrected him that it should be "The Great Green Dragon". It didn't have the word big in it.
@@OldLordSpeedy The i-a thing certainly exists as well, e. g. in words like "mischmasch" or "plitsch platsch". Regarding the example in the video with "big bad wolf", I don't buy it's relating to the vowels anyways since German has the very same set term "großer böser World" in the same word order, but with totally different vowels.
hey i was taught this one in school! my teacher called it the OSSACOMP rule.
OSSACOMP standing for
Opinion, Shape, Size, Age ,Color, Origin, Material, Purpose
being the order in which adjectives and adverbs are supposed to go before a noun.
Same
Same
size come before shape.
_nani???_
Same
what's odd is that I'd say "happy little dog" but "big happy dog" and changing the order would feel wrong
Because "little dog", like "little guy" sounds like it's own term, so adjectives come before the whole term. While with "big dog" "big" is treated as just an adjective .
@@Ebbagull so i guess “little” is kind of functioning as a diminutive here rather than a strict descriptor of the dog’s size?
@@aphrog649 yes, or more like 'little dog' is functioning as a compound noun. It's treating 'little' as an intrinsic quality of the dog. Kind of like 'if it had had not three corners it would not be my hat', if it was not 'little', it wouldn't be that dog.
But tiny happy dog sounds fine.
The order of adjectives rule is actually logical. It's has to do with how the brain logically pieces together details based on the order they are heard or read.
no, it's definentally big hairy happy dog
In this case, "happy" is probably filling the type category. Also, this still respects the ablaut reduplication rule which reinforces it sounding correct.
Right? I was thrown off by “happy big hairy”
My brain is telling me to say "Big happy hairy" dog...
definentally
@@BurningheartofSILVER A happy big hairy dog is a big hairy dog who is usually morose but at the moment is happy.
As a former ESL/EFL teacher, you have given me an unwelcome flashback. I have struggled with this numerous times. I finally settled on contingency as the best way to explain not applying the most usual [base or primary] word order. You can illustrate this with the old sentence diagram or with an application of Chomsky's phrase structure or underlying string theories. Or, you can shrug and say that English is not a single language with a single coherent structure but a patchwork of ad hoc arrangements.
English is a hodgepodge full of bodges. I tutored an Iranian friend a bit in English a while back; she often found the strangeness of the language as amusing as it was bemusing.
@@HayTatsuko Farsi/Persian is an Indo- European language like English with a similar tense structure, the problems often come from the islamization. The original* of Green rotary "sabzi medan" is still used in some places like Gilan and Mazandaran, while "medan-e sabzi" is standard. There are as many issues for westerners learning Farsi as the reverse.
*That's what I was told, but I was also told the reverse, it would be impolite to argue about it with a native speaker.
@KMac Perhaps you should get educated so that you can understand words, sentences and meanings.
English is three languages in a trench coat that regularly roughs up other dialects behind a dumpster then rifles through their pockets for loose words and grammar.
In ablaut reduplication, there's sometimes a third step, that being a word with an O or a U (even "big bad wolf" applies, but also phrases like "bish bash bosh", or verb forms like drink/drank/drunk or sing/sang/sung
While that's largely true, the verb forms examples you give are not relevant: they are simply the "evolved" 1st 2nd and 3rd forms of verbs that you would never normally say in a string in common speech; none of them is an idiomatic phrase in its own right, spoken for effect.
I think in the case of "big bad wolf", "bad" takes the form of a purpose adjective, so it comes after size
Surely it is distinguishing between the big and little versions of wolf that are bad, as opposed to distinguishing between the good and bad versions of wolf that are big?
the bad is not opinion or purpose it is nature/personality/demeanor a group left out of the listed order
It is because of a different language rule. Big Bad Wolf, follows the i a o rule, thus can sound wrong to hear, but sound right to say. Examples of i a o, is tic tac toe. It is the vowel sounds gradually moving backwards into your throat, that makes it more comfortable to say.
So if I'm displeased with that wolf it's a bad big bad wolf XD
@@nicholaskehler9169 A "Big Bad Wolf" is a character in a cautionary tale that serves as the threat - so from a narrative perspective, the wolf's purpose is indeed to be bad.
I remember tackling this in semantics class. We had to come up with our own theories as to the whys behind the order and practice peer review at a simple level by poking holes in each other's theories. I had a fairly good theory going relating to quantifiability i.e. the less variable the quality the adjective described was, the closer to the noun it was. I remember that it did get shot down, but I can't remember how right now.
Does this have to do with subjectivity vs. objectivity? Like, a wolf might appear big to me, but will certainly not to a whale, which has always been blue, even as a baby. Hence, "big blue whale".
@@joaopedrobalieirodacosta2844 I wish I'd thought of that when I was writing that paper!
@@joaopedrobalieirodacosta2844 I never knew about these rules but when I reard the thumbnail I started thinking about it before watching and that was my initial consideration. Seemed appropriate.
I actually found out about this rule from a French friend of mine who was learning English. He said his teacher told him the order of adjectives in English should follow was she called "TACO" which stands for, in French, "taille, âge, couleur and origine" which translates as, "size, age, color and origine" I tested it out and he was right, " The big, old red Persian rug" or "The small, 150 year old, blue American painting" I was shocked to learn about this untaught rule at the ripe old age of 45 !
6:35 I thought it’s because the Big Bad Wolf originated in fiction, and his size is less important to his character than his role as the antagonist
I don’t know why, but for the long example, it sounds a little better to switch the size and physical quality in the order.
“Patches was a happy, hairy, big, round, young, brown, American leather, all-weather hunting dog.” Just sounds like an excellent line from a children’s book.
I think writers would tell you a great writer knows when to follow rules and when to break them and depending on what you are trying to achieve or what medium you are working with you would want certain sounds together… for instance changing the order to achieve alliteration for something like poetry or a children’s book makes sense, but if it was a news article you may want to forego such playfulness. The rule is useful for general purpose but not concrete.
Not a linguist, but I wonder if this is because our preference for alliteration overpowers the usual ordering.
@@ehuber6537 yea I think it's that, but also, when you're writing something you may put things a bit out of order just to draw the reader's attention to it, or to grab hold of them... there are always exceptions to the rule, but they're very subjective and contextual to the tone and delivery of the message you're trying to convey because reading a book or writing a book is a bit like a conversation... you have to take into consideration not just "what is correct", but how will the reader interact with this... what will their brain think when they read this... do I want them to wash over it fluidly, or make them stop and re-read it? All that to say alliteration, consonance, and assonance all create interactions that are potential exceptions
@@EarnestEgregore Yes, I think that makes sense. In that way, those "rules" are more like guidelines. Not always following them can be the better choice, but randomly breaking them without purpose usually just looks messy.
I thing it is also adjectives describing each other, "big bad wolf" is like a wolf that very bad, as in largely bad, while "bad big wolf" sounds like a physical wolf that is just plain bad
But if I'm judging that wolf's behavior and find it slightly off, I'd say it's a little bad big bad wolf =)
Mmm... maybe. But I can't think of a sensible way to use "big" in a way that describes an adjective.
"I'm big happy"
"Oh, he's big tall"
"They're big angry"
Even in explaining it, you had to substitute "big" with other words. "Very bad" or "extremely bad" work, but not "big bad." I don't think that was ever the original intent.
I wish this "rule" were something actually taught cause there's been times where I've been using a whole bunch of adjectives at once, and I've gotten turned around about how best to order them for the proper flow. I've been aware that there was a generally agreed upon unspoken rule, but when you're using a bunch at once you can kinda have to think about it and the second you aren't ordering them intuitively it becomes confusing.
As for commas, I was taught between every adjective.
I thought it was because the adjectives are describing the other adjective, not the noun.
For GOT, “grey stone labyrinth,” grey is information about the stone, not the labyrinth. It could be a reddish stone labyrinth. Reddish has no bearing on the labyrinth, but it does the the of stone.
In some cases, yes, in other cases, no.
You're absolutely right. If two adjectives apply to the noun, there should most often be a comma between them, whatever the "classification" of the adjective. He said a comma goes in only when two adjectives from the same category or classification are used. That is definitely not correct. You are right that the word "grey" applies more to the stone than to the labyrinth itself. Technically what you have there is a noun (labyrinth) being modified by an adjective (stone) which is being modified by the adverb "grey." So you have NO "list" of adjectives here that both apply equally to the noun. You have adverb + adjective + noun. That is why no comma is needed. "Big, brown dog" SHOULD get the comma because both big and brown apply to the dog. (The "brown" isn't big, the dog is big.) Doesn't matter what their adjective "classification" is. (I have a degree in English grammar, and it is my curse or blessing to know these things.) The reason you don't get a comma after "this, that, these, those, the, a," and "an" is that they, although technically adjectives, are also further delineated as demonstratives and articles. Their rules for punctuation differ from common adjectives. The maker of this video is WRONG about this point, and you are right.
Words that modify adjectives are adverbs, not other adjectives,. Adverbs also modify verbs and other adverbs too.
In the big bad wolf example, I’d argue that bad is not an opinion but a type. This wolf is not a normal or good wolf but a bad one since the wolf is the villain. The big bad wolf in stories is introduced as bad before any description is read. The story is letting the audience know what the characters will be dealing with almost like foreshadowing.
“Bad” is definitely an opinion, as perspective matters. From the human perspective, the wolf is bad. From the wolf’s perspective, it’s just trying to survive.
Which is why I would argue that “big” is also opinion, as perspective matters in this context.
Ironically, if you Say "Big Bad" on its own it's a noun. As that has become a Compound Word used to describe the Main villain in a Story.
This video is like me in Polish and case endings. I'm Polish but was educated in the UK and I never studied in school the language but I grew-up speaking with my parents. I just instinctually know the case endings. While sometimes I get the case ending incorrect I still am correct most of the time.
I lived in Poland until a few years back and yeah, we learned about the cases in fourth or fifth grade (I think). Didn't know any of the theory before that, then forgot a few months later. The only reason I had for knowing it, was not failing the test. It's just something you know intuitively (that goes for most of Polish, to be honest, except for spelling rules). Though, I feel like it would be a _very_ different story for someone trying to learn it from scratch.
Almost the same here, was learning Ukrainian and r*ssian at school, but spoke both at home and boi it was much easier just to use cases intuitively than to learn their names in two languages. Actually, we did learn nothing then, just remembered when and how we used them and had to call them ‘that’s dative: to whom, to what’
Same in Poland itself. We learn what the cases are, but not actually how to make them. I didn't realize how complicated the case endings are, until I saw the tables of declination in some dictionary.
Btw, Polish bros, you put the adjectives after the noun, what order do you have then? And why sometimes put the adjective before, like in ‘polski bank narodowy’?
@@nonameuserua
Word order doesn't matter in Polish. All 6 are grammatically possible due to the cases endings but SVO is the default. Same with other Slavic languages.
In China, the memory aid 大小(size)圆(shape)旧(age)黄(colour)，法国(origin)木(material)书房(purpose) is taught in the primary school to resemble the English adjective order.
Wait so the word for size in Chinese is a dvanda that's cool.
@@kakahass8845 yes, though it's only for the casual context
@@mukdenbusakda4156 I wish more languages would use dvandas.
In German, you put a comma when the adjectives are of equal rank, i.e. changing order would not change the meaning. Commas can be replaced by "and" and vice versa. You put no comma when the earlier adjective is further specifying what comes after it, so changing order or replacing by "and" would (if subtly) change the meaning.
I am convinced the UA-cam algorithm is reading my mind. I had completely forgotten about this rule and somehow yesterday I was randomly remembered learning this rule in school and thought it was weird how it was a grammar rule that I knew without consciously knowing. Now today this video gets recommended to me.
When I was an English language student about 15 years ago, we used to learn about the adjective order through their initials (which I don't remember nowadays). Something like OSASCOMUN. Today, as an English language teacher, English language books and curricula don't include the adjective order.
*OSASCOMP, I found it
OSSACOMP maybe?
@@sandybarnes887 something like this, yes.
@@AntonisThe ok. Cool. It's a guess. Someone mentioned that in the comments
Even though I’ve already learnt about this, I still do really appreciate all the interesting videos I’ve watched over the years.
Thanks for the kind words!
Reminded me of German lessons at school and the teacher's constant drumming in of Time-Manner-Place as the correct order of sentence or clause construction.
Thank you for asking this! I heard about this from a Reddit comment years ago and never really had any explanation other than I just know this. I was thinking about this grammar rule the other day and glad to have a full video about it!
In polish it's very similar, I think. What I find interesting is, that the last adjective can sometimes go after the noun, but only if it's inherently connected to it (I'm not sure, but it can be the same as purpose). So, "big brown hunting dog" is "duży brązowy pies myśliwski", where "pies" is "dog". We would also say "pies myśliwski" on its own, it sounds weird with the "standard" order of adjective-noun.
While less common in English, there are cases where this occurs, mostly due to loan words. For example, "attorney general". "There are five tall brunette attorneys general" is a technically correct English phrase.
I was just about to say something similar, but I realize it only applies to words that come into English from Latin and French. So maybe it's just because English is not strictly its own language
'pies myśliwski' doesn't sound weird, just like 'niedźwiedź biały', 'kot domowy' or 'bank narodowy'. The adjectives go after the noun when it is used to describe the type or category of the noun. And there is no adjectives order like in English.
In the marketplace listings, you're slightly off: extra and extremely are adjectives modifying other adjectives rather than modifying the noun.
That's called adverbs, that's why he put the whole terms into one box. Extra could be an adjective, but then it's not about size.
@androlsaibot "verbs" adverbs modify verbs, while adjectives modify nouns and other adjectives. It must be embarrassing to incorrectly correct someone.
The Big Bad Wolf chased the Good Little Girl. -- Fascinating.
Right on. Thanks for sharing.
Combinations like Stone labyrinth, oak door and apple tree get connected in Swedish (stenlabyrint etc), so en "grå stenlabyrint" couldn't ever be "sten grålabyrint". A stone-labyrinth is arguably a thing, a grey-labyrinth not. Partly, I think, because stone is a thing, but not quite. Red wine for example: rödvin (and the colour wine is - vinröd).
Sometimes, we add a s. A shelf for school books: "skolbokshylla". A shelf of the school-book kind. But a book shelf in a school: "skolbokhylla". A book shelf of the school kind.
Errors in this regard can be severe. A grey-haired nurse = en gråhårig sjuksköterska. But En grå hårig sjuk sköterska = A grey, hairy, sick nurse. 😅
gråsten labyrint
A reason why material comes between colour and noun might be that it makes sense no matter whether you apply the colour to the noun or the material, i.e. a "(grey stone) wall" makes just as much sense as a "grey (stone wall)".
But the order of other adjectives can change the meaning: a big red bus is a red bus that is big, whereas a red big bus is a big bus that is red.
If there are lots of small and big buses in lots of colours, but only the buses which are red have both a big and small version then the big red bus describes the big version of the red bus.
If there are lots of big and small buses in various colours, but if the only bus that is red is big then the red big bus describes the big bus that is red.
whereas if you say 'a stone gray wall' you are saying a wall that is the COLOR of stone, but implicitly not stone.
A key thing that was left out of this video i think, is that adjectives placed side by side will seem to be describing _each other_ so they'd better be different enough categories that they obviously aren't, or similar enough that it's okay if they do.. like size before material since the material doesn't have a size, but if you were to use a condition word like 'coarse' then it would clearly be describing the stone material, not merely the wall.
The funny thing is that both "grey stone labyrinth (灰石迷宮)" and "stone grey labyrinth (石灰迷宮)" are correct in Chinese,
but "grey stone labyrinth" means "graystone labyrinth" and "stone grey labyrinth" means "limestone labyrinth".
@@user-vt9bp2ei1w oh yeah, nothing gets quite as confusing in language than when two words put together have a very specific meaning outside of the literal combination of the two ideas.
💡Wow, I've watched your channel for years but this is one of your MOST interesting videos and the only one I'd never thought of before! 👍🏻
I learned this rule from that one tumblr post that describes it as "opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpise" and the example was "lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife". maybe it's the example, or the fact that this post introduced me to the concept, but I personally see this as the correct adjective order
This is the hardest thing for me to consciously understand and remember, so I just trust that my innate sense of "this sounds right and that sounds weird" guides me through it properly. Except, of course, when I purposefully break the rule (I think) in order to emphasize an certain adjective.
I think this goes to show that we don't need grammar police going around and giving people a hard time for using "incorrect English", as if the sky would fall without their constant vigilance. Turns out we can allow people to follow their instincts for the most part (perhaps with some usage guidance in contexts where careful speech is important, like science), and we'll all be perfectly fine.
I agree. Discussing grammer is fun though. There is a lot of nuance. Particularly when it comes to poetry, what sounds good, and writing.
Well, some adjectives fit more than one category as you said. 'Bad' could be an opinion of the wolf, or it could be the type of wolf There may be good, bad, helpful, or hurtful wolves. So 'big bad wolf' would then be seen as 'size', 'type' order??
I only learned of this rule a couple years ago, but I've used this sort of ordering all my life. As you say, "it just comes natural" when one learns English as their primary language.
i like to think as
"less inherent ->> most inherent" quality
but admittedly it's not a rule of thumb, and can often be quite ambiguous as to what is the most inherent quality of certain thing
6:35 No, "Bad" is his type. The type of wolf he is, is bad. My opinion is that he is mean, he is a mean big bad wolf
We learned about this in 8th grade (U.S., 13-14 years old) as an aside, just-for-fun lesson that we weren't tested on, and it was so eye-opening to me that I couldn't believe it hadn't been part of our lesson plans years earlier. I walked out of that class a changed person lol
A "fast old car", an "old fast car" and a "fast, old car" are all different things in my ears.
My favorite videos of yours include this and 'noun types'.
We simply use whatever order subjectively sounds best at the time, no need for a rule as we hear words together so often we develop a preference.
i remember one time actually getting a worksheet in elementary school that showed us this order. reading the rest of these comments, i’m surprised no one else had these lol
I would say that the order of adjectives is reliant upon primacy - which trait is most significant and/or distinguishing about the noun being described.
Using the "big bad wolf" example: The wolf is presented as a considerable threat to the protagonist. Described as a "bad big wolf" emphasizes that the wolf is bad, which is somewhat a given for an antagonist; the fact that he is large (even moreso in relation to the protagonist - "little red riding-hood") emphasizes the magnitude of the threat he poses.
With J R R Martin's "grey stone labyrinth", primacy is placed upon "grey". While most typically used in reference to the color, it also conveys a sense of foreboding indifference - or, in moral terms, something which is a variegation of positive and negative traits.
With the "extra large modern dolls house", scale is primary trait of interest. Though dolls are somewhat standardized in size, a doll house requires ample room for both play and storage.
With the "huge extremely heavy amonite" (sic), the scale/size is again the primary trait of interest. Fossils of all types generally tend to be smaller and, being embedded in stone, their relative weight is something of a given; hence, the size is of key importance.
Compare "it was a cold beautiful day" with "it was a beautiful cold day". Both are completely valid descriptions of the day, conveying exactly the same characteristics with the same adjectives, but their ordering changes the meanings. "Cold beautiful day" acknowledges that the day is indeed beautiful (value/opinion) but what is more important is that it's freaking cold - "beautiful cold day" acknowledges that the day is rather cold (temperature) but emphasizes that the day is beautiful (despite the cold).
This was an educational great video fantastic very. Thanks.
Also a thing to note about the "gray stone labyrinth" thing is that if it had been "stone gray labyrinth", that would imply that the labyrinth is gray like a stone, but not necessarily MADE of stone.
@Name Explain
May I ask what kind of dialect you speak where almost all words get an extra "e" at the end?
Olly Richard's has a great one about a little old French diamond engagement ring.
He had more adjectives, too.
that really helped me not think about the worries of the day. and makes me wonder about how i as an american english speaker from birth just know this. mind boggling. thank you!
There is one exception you did not cover, but it could exist only in the US. for tires, we would say “all purpose snow tires” where type comes after purpose instead of before it.
I always laugh when I read or hear all purpose in the description of something. It's for all purposes, so you can eat it or use it as a cleaning agent or build a house with it ...
Thanks!
I read a post that said something like "put adjectives so that the one closest to the noun is the one most likely to be associated with it. Put them in decreasing order of association the farther away you get from the word that is being modified." So, we write "big happy hairy dog" because nearly all dogs are hairy. Dogs are also usually happy, although there will be times when they are not. Finally, many dogs are not big, so that is the adjective least likely to be associated with the word "dog". Makes sense to me :)
We learnt this in school, some other comment even has the acronym for it! solved one of my biggest grammatical mysteries.
Some prescriptive grammar rules make communication more effective. But they mostly help the Bourgeoisie identify each other and exclude bogans from social and job opportunities.
Gotta luv ozzie slang. The richest English of all. Why don't we use bogan here in england?
This is how I'd try to explain the order:
opinion - observer's point of view, ie. what they are currently thinking or seeing, applying to ...
size - obviously, the object's total mass, applying to ...
physical quality - surface description, applying to ...
shape - obviously, object's form, applying to ...
age - obviously, wear and tear, applying to ...
color - object's most dominant color, applying to ...
origin - obviously, the make, applying to ...
material - what it's made from, applying to ...
type - secondary opinion, applying to ...
function - most basic application of said object ...
called by its noun.
Basically, the more intrinsic, the further behind in the order.
That's how you can get an unwieldy large rough angular worn rusty Caribbean iron folding pocket dagger.
A peeve of mine( that I stroke, pet, once in a while) is the "a" and "an" use like "a"car/pen/phone as compared with "an" ambulance/education/opinion. Also the "the" thing; whether to have it or not; going to "the" grocers then to "-" school/hospital/church/lake. "-" meaning the the preposition is absent UNLESS it is specifying a particular one of an item ;to the artist's school as it isn't the parochial one, or the animal hospital not the human hospital. The Catholic church, not the Baptist one.
Some of those categories are in that order because of their ease of identity/recognition. The more important an adjective for clear identification the closer it is to the noun. For instance colour is more readily or certainly recognized than size, which can change by context: the cow may be small and close or large and far away, but it is patently black-and-white and that doesn't change even if it's pouring cats-and-dogs... (if visibility is low)
The reason for other parings is harder to argue but sometimes can be helped by looking at the history of human society and development of our language: for instance I believe material is more important/fundamental than colour because it directly influences the noun's usefulness for it's purpose. It's more immediately important that a hut is stone, mud or rush, than is the fact someone painted it red -- red doesn't help it withstand a storm any better than green.
can you describe the adjectives in waxed lightly weathered cut copper stairs?
The examples used for opinion don't work for me as they all come after size. Anyone got any others that may help?
Colour is more specific than size usually, so the colour adjective may be more useful/important than the size adjective, even though size may be more important than colour in general.
I was taught this one in school I honestly forgot it and just went w my gut every time but hey the teacher made an effort
In Dutch this is almost the same but there are 2 forms of Adjectives ''Bijvoegelijknaamwoord'' which roughly translates to placeable name word and ''Stoffelijknaamwoord'' which is material name word the diffrence between the two one is only material other is everything else but in Dutch you add an e to non material and an en to material with some exceptions like plastic
What's interesting and funny, is that 2 weeks ago, @NativLang did a video about the rarest word order. Then, @Linguisticae, his French equivalent, explained word order for French. And then there's this very video we're watching.
The videos in question for anyone wondering:
NativLang: ua-cam.com/video/6YIz1HXDbCI/v-deo.html
Linguisticae: ua-cam.com/video/WXDpiwL4VK0/v-deo.html
The interesting thing here is that native English speakers know which order to place adjectives (as stated).
However there is a caveat.
If you lived in an area where all big buses were blue. Then a red version would be identified as "A Red big bus".
So, we were taught in school was adjectives in order of reverse mutability. The harder a trait described by an adjective (or adverb) is to change, the closer it goes to the root word. Or the more important an adjective is to the description, the closer to the root word it goes. I think In order of Reverse Clarity is close but not quite.
Size can be changed with distance or relative scaling. Banana next to a car and the banana is small, but banana next to a fly, and the banana is large. Or in a group of bananas the large banana adds specificity. Where changing something like colour or material requires a process.
I'm not sure how true this holds. But it feels right a lot of the time. (In the case of Big Bad Wolf in addition to the other reasons, it also would imply based on mine that Badness is a very inherent trait of the wolf, Moreso than size)
Learned about this when studying German in college, where a similar implied structure exists. I was FASCINATED. I absolutely love language.
Thanks! I love your videos!
If something is being described as “evil”, I think that word would always be placed just before the noun, in the “purpose” slot, I guess. It would always be the word you most want to emphasize. But the same can’t be said for the adjective “good”, can it?
Investgate some of the Inuit dialectcs in Northern Canada. Some have 7 words to describe the type of snow.
I didn’t see anything about the bus as per the thumbnail. Anyone can share the time it appeared in?
i remember we were taught about this, but i kinda did not mind too much. i do remember (not sure if it's in class or youtube) the order can also change the meaning, or rather the focus/emphasis of the statement. big hairy dog means the hairy dog is big, but hairy big dog is the big dog is hairy.
5:54 “…what is just so amazing about this grammar rule is that you will most certainly know how to use it without even knowing you know how to use it.”
Actually, what’s amazing is that anyone thinks that’s amazing. Practically _all_ of what we call grammar-aside from, perhaps, a few rules that one learns in school-is unconsciously learned. (People probably spoke “grammatically” for tens of thousands of years before they had any idea that they were doing so.) We don’t really follow rules of grammar-rules of grammar are extracted from _how_ we use language. In fact, that’s what linguists specializing in grammar _do:_ they figure out or, at least _try to_ figure out, how to describe how people speak and call those “rules.” There are zillions of examples-just take a look at Huddleston & Pullum’s _Cambridge Grammar of the English Language._
Thanks for creating some really great, informative content that’s as entertaining as it is educational. Much of what I learn is useful when I am writing my international numismatic catalog, The Banknote Book. Buy yourself a pint or two on me!
I agree with the Mark Forsyth order, specifically, Age before Shape.
This is the type of stuff that large language models such as GPT have now started figuring out explicitly for us mere humans.
Adjective order “feeling right” is basically trained the same way for native English speakers and AI language models
In Spanish, word order usually goes as the noun coming before the adjective (e.g. gato negro, carro grande, cuchilla peligrosa), but sometimes it can go as the adjective coming before the noun like in English (e.g. mejor amigo instead of amigo mejor). So, I'm assuming that it'd be reversed in Spanish.
Awesome video. Now, how about the opposite: Go over terms that native English speakers often think sound okay and use a lot, even though wrong, such as "Me and him went to the store" instead of "He and I went to the store". Or "It's best to not take a chance" when it should be "It's best not to take a chance' (don't split the infinitive).
While the main idea is to list adjectives in order of importance, the category order has always been more of a rule of thumb for me. Like I before E except after C. I'd stick to Grammarly's definition to consider it a hard rule.
For example, if someone is trying to point something out to you, color/shape can suddenly jump way up on the list (with size overtaking opinion). "Fuzzy brown squirrel" becomes "brown fuzzy squirrel" and is situationally correct!
Also, big bad wolf is an iffy example for ablaut reduplication. "Small bad wolf" still sounds more accurate than "Bad small wolf" and I'd bet it's because "bad" is not an opinion in that context, it's a purpose.
6:25 It could also be because Bad is used as a “Type/Purpose” Bad Wolf being a type and Bad Wolf being the purpose of the wolf in the story of Riding hood.
I remember learning about this for English class, i found it very confusing. I really only understand it after watching this video lol
The capitalisation and compounding of nouns in German was to disambiguate from nominalisation of verbs e.g. essen=eat, (das)Essen=food and say horse racing. If you said 'pferde rennen' that is 3rd person pl 'the horses run/are running' Pferderennen is clearer as horse racing. The same rennen= to run, (das) Rennen= (the) running.
Ismo says, your words are full of unneccessary letters..
like the b in subtle, the c in scissors, the g in design, the t in listen, and the gh in thought.
Waste of paper; or as we would write it in Finnish:
weist ov peipö
no bc i was thinking about this exact thing like an hour before i saw this... i was like "how do we know which one goes in what order?" THEN THIS POPS UP?!
i actually learned about this in 4th grade! i thought it was stupid, especially since a lot of the class found it hard or confusing. A kid next to me asked how I remembered the order and I literally told him "just do what sounds right when you say it out loud"
"Yes! But why do we do that exactly?"
"We don't know."
Fantastic! I've learned absolutely nothing, but had a lot of fun!
I think an addition tonthe rule should be "State"
Maybe even split it between "Physical State" "Emotional State"
Where physical coulduse terms like Gross or weathered
Emotional state can be from the observer if it's an inanimate object or fmto describe that something is hally, sad, bad, etc.
Altertively there coukd be a background adjective, like using bad in the 'Big Bad Wolf' it's a background trait.
Charrii5 actually said something about that rule in his everything wrong with color splash video
I think situations matter too when it comes to word orders. Like... if you have a lot of vehicles and multiple of them are big busses, you might point out the "red big bus" as a distinguisher from the other big busses. In such cases that order makes more sense for me than big red bus. But that's just me, what do you guys think?
You gave the example of "big, huge" as using two size adjectives which requires a comma separating them. But is there any rule for the order of these two? Irish people I met said :"huge, big," which sounded unusual for me.
I think our brain assigns more importance to the beginnings and endings of sentences, the middle part is more "filling", so the things you think are more important should be either at the beginning or at the end, if something is huge and you want to stress that, you'll say that in the beginning, then add more details that you think are important near the end.
Isn't the 'grey stone' labyrinth because it's a labyrinth made of grey stone? I thought the order of adjectives has to do with how close to an inherent quality the adjective is. The more essential, the closer to the noun the adjective sits.
I absolutely know this, as a non-native English speaker is the rule I struggle with the most, I actually think it isn't worth it learning it just as a manual, instead I'm trying to get this sense of wether the order is ok or not
It just feels intuitive to me that the order goes by whatever is most intrinsic to the noun being closer. Like a big wooden spoon is more different from a big metal spoon than a small wooden spoon. If it got dirty it would be a dirty big wooden spoon, because it can be cleaned. The dirt isn't intrinsic to the thing. Even though size feels intrinsic, its also relative. So the more intrinsic and objective and relevant the ajdective is the closer it goes to the noun, ready to be hyphenated and treated like a compound word in your mind.
What about the Big Friendly Giant? Roald Dahl was an accomplished writer but he was also Danish so maybe that has something to do with it perhaps. It's not old enough to be an established rule-breaker but may be a Proper Noun?
The giant's disposition is more important than size, and it sounds better to separate two words that mean the same thing.
I wonder how many types of adjectives there are?
holy heck i did not know i needed to hear “washy-wishy”
I've never really thought about this even though I do it all the time. I do feel like some differences in order of adjectives may be colloquial. To me "happy big hairy dog" sounds proper, but "happy big dog" doesn't. I would say "big happy dog." But, "big happy hairy dog" also sounds proper.
i think a majority of my language acquisition was done purely through observation. I didn't even know what a noun was for a while, but still figured that saying "an dog" sounded incorrect.
Interesting... I never noticed this!
I would definitely say "big happy hairy dog".