How do we decide how to order our adjectives when writing?
Medium · Language & Linguistics · 2014 · 481 words
Visa proposes a rule for ordering adjectives based on information density, with more meaningful adjectives placed closer to the noun.
How do we decide how to order our adjectives when writing?
This was a comment that I left on Quora that got me over 150 upvotes.
My wife and I spent a lot of time thinking about this (she was an English teacher, and I'm a person who's very passionate about language)- and we both thought the "_quantity, opinion, size, age, shape, blah blah,"_ idea was utterly ludicrous. It's a pain to learn, a pain to teach.
You don't need to lecture birds on aerodynamics, they learn it themselves, by flying.
So I tried to understand- how exactly do we decide the order of adjectives? Why does **Big Red House** feel better than **Red Big House**?
Here's a rule of thumb I sort of came up with:
The more information communicated by the adjective, the closer you place it to the noun.
This is slightly analogous to the "inverse pyramid of information" that journalists are familiar with, and my guess is that it's evolved organically over time because language always tends towards what is effective and convenient.
By placing the most important/meaningful adjectives closest to the noun, you ensure the optimal communication of meaning. This is the fundamental purpose of language and communication.
So it's _cold_ **purple rain**, not _purple_ **cold rain.** Because purple rain is more unique than cold rain. (Exception: If you live in a world where all rain is purple, and most rain is hot.)
You "couple" the stickiest adjective closest to the noun.
A red house is more noteworthy and specific than a big house, so it's a _big_ **red house. (**Exception- suppose you're playing a monopoly-like board game, where there is a unit called a Big House, and they come in different colours. Then you have a _red '_big house'.)
Big bad wolf makes more sense than bad big wolf, because **the wolf's badness is more relevant and meaningful to the story than its bigness.**
You could probably craft a specific story where the Bad Big Wolf faces off against the Good Big Wolf in a struggle to win the affections of the Neutral Small Wolves. The Small Neutral Wolves remain uninvolved, as long as the Big Bad Wolf doesn't interfere.
I have some other little observations: red big ball also doesn't feel right because **_for the most part,_** _"_red" is less subjective than "big". Exception: As with the game example cited earlier, when "big" refers to a specific size that is agreed upon within the context of the discussion/gameplay. Then you got the Red big ball and the Blue big ball and the Red small ball and the Blue small ball…
Ultimately we use whatever is most effective at communicating meaning with minimal loss/confusion.
**GEEKY META EDIT: I was just re-reading my comment and I saw my own unintentional use of "important/meaningful". Notice that "meaningful" is the more important/meaningful term in "important/meaningful." So it comes closer to the noun.**
Originally posted as a comment on Quora.
Originally published at https://medium.com/@visakanv/c39a9dbc6cf6.