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The Order of Adjectives
n.b. Usually adjectives go in front of nouns in English.

e.g.  Traditionally Miss Right is a beautiful, blond actress, aged about 24, with an hour-glass figure.

e.g. Traditionally Mr. Right is tall, dark and handsome, with lots of money.

Unfortunately some of us are short, fat and ugly. Never mind! We do our best! Plastic surgery, dieting, exercise, added to dreams and illusions, enable us to find our own Miss Right or Mr. Right.

In the examples above you will see the way we organise our adjectives. It is unusual to have more than 2 or three adjectives in front of the noun they describe. If you want to add more information then you can do it by adding a phrase after it, as you can see above where I have added 'with + a noun', for example.

Question: why 'tall, dark and handsome', why 'short, fat and ugly'?

We favour a particular order:-
describing a feeling, size, age, colour, defining:
e.g. a beautiful, little, old, red, Persian carpet.

but we would never say so many adjectives all together;

and how could you remember the order when you are speaking?

The answer is to learn by listening!

Is it 'old, little man' or 'little, old man'? To any English speaker the first order could never be right, but they don't know the rules above, they just know what sounds right!

Practice Exercise: Correct these sentences:


1. a/an Spanish, old, fine wine.
2. my husband is a dark-haired, tough, big man.
3. her house is a/an Victorian, old, pretty, two-bedroomed cottage.
4. South Americans are usually vital, dark, Latin, hot-blooded people.
5. my computer is an elegantly-designed, essential, useful, expensive piece of equipment.

Answers:
1. a fine, old, Spanish wine.
2. my husband is a big, tough, dark-haired man.
3. her house is a pretty, old, two-bedroomed, Victorian cottage.                                                  !But you wouldn't say this! You say: her house is a pretty, old Victorian cottage, with two bedrooms.
4. South Americans are usually vital, dark, hot-blooded Latins.                                                (You wouldn't normally include 4 adjectives. It's too many!)
5. my computer is an elegantly-designed piece of equipment which was expensive but essential. (n.b. leave out 'useful', you've got 'essential'!)                                                     Alright? See the other exercises for more information.

See the A - Z of English Grammar & Usage for the rules

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