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Ask for help > Question about order of adjectives
Question about order of adjectives
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MarionG
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Question about order of adjectives
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Dear all, Maybe someone can help me out here... "funny" and "cute" both are opinions (IMHO ☺) so how do I know whether to write: five cute funny boys OR five funny cute boys Can anyone help me out? (it is from an excellent multiple choice worksheet I downloaded here, but I don �t remember who made it) Thanks, Marion
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20 Apr 2015
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yanogator
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They both sound very natural, so it doesn �t matter. Bruce |
20 Apr 2015
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gabriel_aubert
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As Yanogator says, they both sound natural. But if you want to avoid the problem just use "AND" to join the adjectives. "Five cute and funny boys" |
20 Apr 2015
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dmharg
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When you have more than one adj, you start with the most general. In this case I agree with Bruce and Gabriel :) |
21 Apr 2015
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yanogator
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Here �s the strange thing, Gabriel. With "and", the order becomes important. I think it has to do with number of syllables, but we are much more likely to say "cute and funny" than "funny and cute". No, I just realized that it isn �t actually the number of syllables, but the stresses on the syllables that makes the difference. There �s a need to have unstressed syllables separating the stressed syllables, which is why "funny and cute boys" doesn �t work, with "cute" and "boys" adjacent, but "cute and funny boys" distributes the stressed syllables around the unstressed. Bruce
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21 Apr 2015
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MarionG
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Thank you all, I understand from all your responses that there really isn �t a clear rule for it ☺ That is also what I told my students today: There is a set order of adjectives (opinion,size,age,shape,color,origin,material,purpose) but when you have two adjectives from the same type (like cute and funny- both opinions), it doesn �t really matter in which order you use them.............They seemed OK with that explanation☺ |
21 Apr 2015
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