What you didn't know that you do know.
Probably most of us English speakers don't realise that there is a specifiy sequence to the everyday adjectives we use to describe things.
The sequence of the adjectives follows the pattern: opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose followed by the noun they are describing.
The example I was sent was: a lovely, little old rectangular, green French silver whittling knife. Noting that silver in this case is the material and not the colour.
If you change the sequence of the adjectives it will end up sounding just plain weird. Strangely enough we all use these sequences but few would be abe to write the rule down.
As the author stated, because size comes before colour, green great dragons just do not exist.
As ever, you wil find exceptions to these rules but the basis is definetely right.
-pw- London |
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