Living in a Multilingual World (The One About Adjectives and their Order)

Read the two sentences below and tell me which is the correct one:

He is an ugly little fellow.

He is a little ugly fellow.

You guessed right. The first one is the correct one. That is, if we are to go by a paragraph, gone viral last autumn, from a book called The Elements of Eloquence. The extract dealt chiefly with the order in which adjectives in English should appear (only applicable if you’re using more than one adjective per noun): opinion, size, age, shape, colour, origin, material, purpose. That is why “ugly” (my opinion), comes before “little” (size).

But I bet that you, native English speaker, knew that without bothering to read the why. That is because you “felt” it was the right way. It is a strange phenomenon, this “feeling”. I began to experience it when I started to think in English halfway through my uni years.

This is a life-changing event that does not announce itself. I am not exaggerating with the life bit. Just think of someone having to translate internally every single word and phrase that is said in a conversation before voicing them. It would be exhausting. The way the mind goes from translation-based communication to a native-speaker-level, sentence-building mindset is almost magical. It just happens. One minute you are consulting your grammar book, the next you “feel” that this is the way these adjectives ought to be arranged if you want your sentence to make sense.

Ugly or little? Which one comes first?

English is not a language famous for its rules, yet, there are plenty. The fact that not many people care about enforcing them doesn’t mean that we should ignore them. For instance, I would never think of placing and adjective after a noun in English, the way we generally do in Spanish and other romance languages (in the case of English, since it is a Germanic lexicon, the adjective+noun structure makes sense). It is just a rule we learn by rote and apply it without any second thoughts.

I am not aware that adjectives in Spanish must be ranked following a pre-arranged order. The sentence above could well be “Él es un hombre feo y pequeño” or “Él es un hombre pequeño y feo” (notice the conjunction “y” [and]. That’s another difference between the two languages). Perhaps there is a similar rule that I have not yet discovered but I doubt it. We have far too many linguistic precepts to deal with already to even contemplate adding a new one.

Without blowing my own trumpet, I am pretty sure that I have, unconsciously, placed adjectives in the correct order most of the time since I became a fluent English speaker. But it is always gratifying when we are validated by hitherto unknown laws of grammar or syntax.

© 2017

Next Post: “Thoughts in Progress”, to be published on Saturday 6^th May at 6pm (GMT)

Living in a Multilingual World (The One About my Inner Linguistic Norman Bates)

“I literally died that night”. No, you didn’t, I thought, looking at my work colleague straight in the eye. Although I could “literally” kill you right now. Smother you with one of the cushions from the Family Learning Room, if you like.

No, I am not a murderer. At least not of the homicidal variety. But when it comes to grammar… well, let us just say that there are a few words and constructions whose misuse awakens my inner Norman Bates.

It is ironic that I am more permissive of modern linguistic fads in my native tongue, Spanish, than I am of my adopted one, English. I have no idea what that says about me but perhaps my attitude owes more to a certain disdain for the Royal Spanish Academy and its zealous role in enforcing obeisance to the language tsars.

However when it comes to English, I have no shortage of gripes. Not to the point of a “Mr Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells”, shooting off letters to The Daily Telegraph every two days to complain about the difference between “use” and “usage", but certainly with what I call linguistic laziness. The “I can’t be bothered to do better” attitude. The English language is one of the richest lexica there are in the world, formed from the amalgamation of different cultures. To treat it as if it were an arid, barren land, bereft of adjectives and adverbials is a crime, in my opinion. Culprits should be sentenced. I can think of no better punishment than to write a thousand times: “it’s” is the contraction of “it is” whereas “its” is the possessive form of “it”. A thousand times, literally.

I know that this impassioned (fanatical, you say? Nah, please, let’s not get too heavy here, shall we?) position puts me on the side of traditionalists. Yet, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m perfectly OK with double negatives (as long as they are used to reinforce an opinion) and the replacement of “more than” by “over” as in “for over thirty years”. At the end of the day it is communication that we are talking about here.

Where I draw a line is in those words and phrases that are bandied about as if there were no consequences beyond their utterance. Yes, there are consequences! We are all human after all. There is no such thing as “more unique”, just “unique”; do not give “110%”, 100% is enough, thanks; do not “literally die of laughter” because if you die, how come you are telling me the story? And, please, please, please, do not get overexcited and do not be overtired. Just be excited and tired (not both at the same time, of course). When did we become a nation of “overs”? Is it to do with cricket? Well, I can’t play the game and I do not understand the rules.

Say "literally" once more. C'mon, I dare you

As I mentioned before, traditionalist, I am not. I love the freedom of the English language, its linguistic institution-free status. One of the reasons, I believe, why it has flourished and become the lingua franca worldwide. But, if we want to preserve the beauty of this language, we ought to be more proactive and less laisez-faire. Let us be bothered, let us do better and use the wide vocabulary that different cultures have bestowed upon Shakespeare’s language. Otherwise my inner linguistic Norman Bates will keep coming out. I mean that literally, by the way.

© 2016

Next Post: “Saturday Evenings: Stay In, Sit Up and Switch On”, to be published on Saturday 18^th June at 6pm (GMT)