For example, the adjectives smart and funny are both adjectives used to express an opinion about something. In general, two or more adjectives are considered to be coordinate adjectives if they belong to the same category of adjectives (more on this in a bit). When used before nouns, adjectives may or may not use a comma depending on if they are coordinate or cumulative adjectives. Wait, wait, come back! We can handle-gulp- comma usage if we work together. What are coordinate and cumulative adjectives?īefore we can actually get to adjective order, we first need to know about coordinate and cumulative adjectives. The reason for this has to do with the most dreaded of all punctuation marks: the comma. Adjectives are usually grouped into special categories, and each category has its place in adjective order. However, there is some method to the madness, and most grammar resources agree on a particular adjective order. Adjective order comes naturally to many English speakers because to them a sentence just “sounds right” when adjectives are used in the “correct” order. Interestingly, a speaker is likely to say the first sentence without even considering what order the adjectives should be in. To a native English speaker, the sentence I bought seven yummy red apples sounds a lot better than I bought red yummy seven apples. In either case, things are pretty simple when we only use one adjective.īut what if we want to use more than one adjective to describe the same noun? Well, then, you need to buckle up because this grammatical ride is about to get bumpy. Adjectives can also come after a linking verb, as in Blanca is cute. Most of the time, we place adjectives directly before the nouns they modify, as in Blanca is a cute kitten. In writing and speech, we can put adjectives in two different places. This is just one of many weird things that often make English an especially tricky language to learn. Native and fluent speakers of English carry around in our heads a lot of invisible rules and guidelines about how English works, and one of them is the order in which we place adjectives. The grouchy little Persian cat wanted food. How about The little Persian grouchy cat wanted food? No, something still sounds off. The Persian grouchy little cat wanted food.
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