The Order of Adjectives: Who Knew?
Here's a rule you know without knowing you know it: the order of adjectives placed before a noun.
The rule (and it's inviolable) is this:
Opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose
Of course, it's not often that we use 8 adjectives to describe something. It's just that we naturally put the adjectives we do use in the right order.
Dilapidated old brown Naugahyde chair makes sense and feels right.
Brown old Naugahyde dilapidated chair also makes sense (sort of), but doesn't feel right.
Same with this one:
Big old blue cotton smock
versus
Old cotton blue big smock
One more:
Gorgeous antique princess-cut diamond ring
versus
Princess-cut diamond antique gorgeous ring
Well, I'm off for a dip in my gym's sparkling huge new rectangular swimming pool.
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