Apologies ! (About language) - YouLookFab Forum

Category

General

Welcome! Read about what to wear and how to wear it on the YLF Blog. Join the YLF Forum to ask specific questions or just chat about fashion and personal style. Or check out the curated list of things we love in YLF Finds.

Outfits Ensembles Trends Advice

Apologies ! (About language)

krishnidoux

Veteran

I just read that

“Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you’ll sound like a maniac. It’s an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out.” (http://www.bbc.com/culture/sto.....ow-we-know). I gulp in shame thinking about all the comments I've posted here in which I might have ignored this rule, therefore sounding like a maniac! Please accept my apologies.

PS: So I guess this unspoken rule would also apply to the style descriptor. Example: Urban (origin) Warrior (purpose) Princess (noun).

General

28 replies

Latest reply was from Barbara Diane

Staysfit

Veteran

Wow! Thanks for the fun link. This is so helpful! My grammar is terrible. I need to apologize also.

Liz

Veteran

Please don't let yourself feel any shame because of what one author who was writing about eloquence said in his book, that got picked up and repeated by the BBC. Nobody "sounds like a maniac" if they get their adjectives in the wrong order. The author has a somewhat "flip" or "light" writing style that shouldn't be taken literally.

(And, to all those who post but do not speak English as your first language, please do not be at all hesitant about posting here. You're very welcome, at whatever level of English you have. I'm just now learning my first foreign language, and I'm in awe of people who speak second or third languages well enough to write in them.)

JAileen

Veteran

I never heard of that! There are lots of people who sound like maniacs regardless of their adjective usage. Anyway, thanks for setting me straight.

Angie

(website)

Fashion Stylist

Your English is fabulous, Krish. There is nothing to apologize for.

Greyscale

Veteran

I was just thinking about this unwritten rule when I made a spreadsheet of all my clothes last month. At first I was trying to describe things in a strict order (vendor, color, blah blah) but there were so many times that it sounded wrong. E.g., if I had a "lightweight cardigan" calling it a "black cotton lightweight cardigan" followed the order I was trying to stick to (for ease of sorting my spreadsheet) but if I were speaking naturally, I would call it a "lightweight black cotton cardigan". Except in this case I was sticking "lightweight" and "cardigan" together to essentially call it a different category of item than a heavy cardigan.

But the author is wrong that it makes one sound like a maniac. Breaking the "rule" by switching the order more often has the effect of putting the emphasis on a different adjective. And sometimes you might want to break the rule intentionally. Also, I absorb unwritten grammar rules very well, yet I can think of countless exceptions to the author's examples that sound fine.

Anonymous

I've never heard of that, but I was taught American English, so it's probably different on this side of the pond.

rachylou

Veteran

That's simply fascinating. Something I've never ever clued in on, and now have to study. It has, tho, occurred to me that I switch up my word order - I know that and that it gives my writing a certain sound.

But I'm looking at 'a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife.' I'm thinking a lot of this word order must have to do with the ease of pronouncing the words, one after the other. If you start with 'old', your article 'a' has to become 'an', for example. Two 'L' words are easier to say together than 'rectangular, little, old, green, lovely.' And whittling sort of has to go with knife, because a 'whittling knife' is a single thing. The 'whittling' could be considered part of the noun itself. You have to be careful with 'silver' - right next to 'green', it might not be clear 'silver' means the metal, not the colour.

I think you could tho say, without discomfort, 'a lovely green old little French rectangular silver whittling knife.'

What lovely fun!!

cobaltblue

Veteran

My husband and I were having a similar discussion about adjectives recently. We have many international friends with English as a second or third language, so the topic "natural sounding" English or Spanish, Polish, etc., comes up a lot. I remember when I first learned that what I'd call a "large, white building" in English should be a "shirokute ookii biru" - white, large building - in Japanese. But in any case, no one would sound like a maniac for getting the adjectives out of order! And, as Greyscale notes, sometimes a variation in the normal order can indicate emphasis. I think these rules that are followed but not consciously known by native speakers are fascinating. It's also interesting that the more I think about a rule like this, the more confused and unable to explain it I get. It's like an instinct!

Firecracker (Sharan)

Veteran

Ha ha! If I sound like a maniac at times, I'm sure I can't always blame it on my adjective usage.

The Cat

Veteran

No reason to apologize.

Interesting rule, which many may follow naturally, or by instinct, so to say. But I don't think it is a rule that has to been followed strictly.

What I find a little surprising, and somehow actually comforting, is that many people with higher education who have English as their mother tongue and only language often seem to mix words like "their" & "there," or "wear" & "were" & "where". I see this almost daily on the Internet. Evidently, spelling simple English words can be difficult for people even with that background. In view of that, try to imagine the challenges for those of us who from early childhood had to relate to three or more languages and dozens of dialects!

Whatever the case, let's not give up, but rather continue to communicate as best we can.

Ledonna N.

Veteran

Apologies are unnecessary.

Do you and let the rest be.

bridgie

Veteran

No need for apologies. I see much worse misuse of English language on the internet, as The Cat mentions.

Especially to RachyLou and everybody I say" Good Grief" as per Charlie Brown.

rachylou

Veteran

Lol, bridgie!

But don't forget, a lawyer can break a contract based on a comma

Alexandra

(website)

Veteran

Interesting rule. Thank you for sharing! (I just bought the Kindle version of the book and am looking forward to some fun reading.)

Like The Cat, I find it surprising (but not at all comforting, quite the opposite actually) that people who should know better butcher this beautiful language all. the. time.

rachylou

Veteran

The brain is a fascinating thing. The spelling mistakes for words that sound the same are a byproduct of how the brain works. It's extremely hard to edit your own work too, because you see what the brain expects not what the eye sees. Thus I'm not bothered about things like that, esp in the age of texting and spellcheck and no secretaries. Regularised spelling, not to mention, is a new fangled invention...

rachylou

Veteran

Ok wait, have to tell this story: I once got into it with this English college teacher on the web because she couldn't parse her grammar and couldn't tell in the following sentence 'original sin' and 'first sin' were different things and not appositives: 'Original sin was caused by the first sin.'

Our theological discussion couldn't even get off the ground! Lol!

L'Abeille

Veteran

Krishnidoux, doesn't French have similar conventions about word order with adjectives? The one I know is size comes before the noun and all the others after. At least I thought I knew it... then recently I heard myself saying it wrong and I'm sure I sounded like a ninny.

The English "rule" he describes is just putting into a definition why it is that some things sound right and some just sound wrong. One of my high school French teachers was a native French speaker, and he could never explain the "why" other than "it sounds wrong". (But he taught me more French than the others did, because he made us speak it.)

Echo

Veteran

I agree with this list, and while one may not often see it written or have it taught to them, it IS taught in certain circumstances. I work as a Title One instructor with students who have difficulty reading and writing, and many of them depend on hard and fast rules. Despite the fact that rules in English are often broken, one we do teach is word order. Because we begin early, we don't use the full list, but we begin with characters they know, like Clifford the Big Red Dog. We explain that size must come before color. Much like the silent e rule, the two vowel rule, and the three sounds -ed can make, the word order rule is something some children need to be explicitly taught.

For non-native speakers, NEVER worry about your spelling, word order or grammar! Everyone here would rather have your thoughts and opinions than a perfectly polished piece of prose!

rachylou

Veteran

That's very cool and fascinating, Echo!

Jaime

(website)

Veteran

I have never heard of this list, have never judged anyone as a maniac because of their adjective order, and am quite sure I sound like a maniac even without adjectives !

Echo

Veteran

rachylou: Most people would be shocked about how many things are taught to some students because they are second nature to most native speakers. Indeed, native speakers will more often misspell than they will violate word order. Spelling is a skill, while word order, item classification and some basic grammatical rules are innate to most children.

anne

Veteran

You are not a maniac Krish - and communicate beautifully. I can tell you aren't a native speaker, but love what you have to say, and am in awe of how well you say it.

I agree that word order tends to be something that is picked up, and not taught in English, but like Echo, have had experience (in my case, in teaching English in Japan) of having to think about and make "rules" for English. We were always having discussions about this with fellow English teachers - discovering some rule we hadn't thought of about English

Also, I think Rachy is right about this spelling mistakes for words that sound the same are a byproduct of how the brain works. It's extremely hard to edit your own work too, because you see what the brain expects not what the eye sees. I have always been good at spelling, and yet have found my fingers making these exact mistakes.

Now I have 2 children who really struggle with spelling (one of whom is a good and keen reader) I'm a lot more sympathetic to those who have bad spelling. I didn't nominate my daughter for an extension programme at school, because of her spelling, and was relieved to find (through a teacher's asking about why she wasn't in it) that it didn't preclude her. (She absolutely loves it.)

But I can relate to finding others' mistakes a bit annoying too, Cat and Alexandra. The one that annoys me is "loose weight" instead of "lose weight", because I always have this image of someone spinning around and the weight kind of coming off like off a cotton spool!

Sisi

Veteran

Very interesting, thank you Krishnidoux! English is not my mother tongue, I studied it at school (I am Italian) but I have forgotten most rules and just speak instinctively. That rule about adjectives is so useful !

Staysfit

Veteran

There are so many regional dialects and phrasing idiosyncrasies that I don't believe grammar rules are going to be instinctive to all English speakers. The city and rural children I work with write like they speak, and it's far from proper English. Grammar and spelling are a skill for most people. If you come from a home where you read books and more or less are exposed to standard grammar rules when speaking, you will write that way. I know, being from particular region in Michigan, that we use certain words and turns of phrases in different ways than people from another region. When I moved, first to California, and then to New York, I had to unlearn them. One simple example would be the words "soda" and "pop". Another would be "pizza" and "pie". (pie might be used in certain areas of NJ or NY) I know pop and pie are slang terms, but before I was 19, I had never used the word soda. If I were to write a sentence asking for a Cola, it might be, "Please pass the pop!" This is a simple, regional slang issue, but, I am certain there are grammar examples as well. (How about the frequent use of the phrase "got to" - another regional favorite where I grew up.)

L'Abeille

Veteran

How interesting, Staysfit! Those slang items you mention (like "pop") are the standard Canadian dialect, pretty much across the country. I have heard that the only US dialect that shares them is Upper Peninsula Michigan. Is that your place of origin?

krishnidoux

Veteran

This conversation has taken a very captivating twist! I am reading all your replies with great interest. Thank you for your reassurance about my writing, and anyone else's too, concerning adjective order.
On this, L'Abeille, yes, French also follows such unspoken rules as English. However I am pretty sure size is not first, but last! And to complicate matters even further, some adjectives are placed after the noun whereas others precede it.
Case in point:
Un joli petit ensemble bleu marine.
(a cute litte outfit blue navy= a cute little navy blue outfit).
Liz, it's instructive for me to know this author is just trying to fluf style using a reference to a maniac to attract attention.
Staysfit, another example for you: upon meeting new people, who will say "How do you do?" Well, of course, onlyEnglish learners (beginners or sometimes intermediates only, at that). And who will dutifully reply "Fine"? When I lived on the West Coast, I was dumbfounded to be the only one ever responding to a "How'r ya?" with a rehersed, constipated bookish " I'm fine thank you", when everybody else produced a simple, direct, evocative "Good! (Good, good, good, good)."

Staysfit

Veteran

L'Abeille, clearly the Canadian influence easily transfers to where I grew up in Suburban Detroit.

Barbara Diane

Veteran

This was a fun read. I never before thought about word order with multiple adjectives.
As for spelling (separate from typing) I finally realized that my spelling problems come from the fact that I hear words where as often times good spellers see them. And my hearing is not that distinct. It took years to figure that out. It explained my mom's shopping list story about trying to interpret "manaize". Mayonnaise.