Blog - Proofreading and Copy Editing

Order of Adjectives

Have you every wondered why it sounds more natural to say ‘my little black phone’, for example, than ‘my black little phone’?

The reason is that there is an accepted order of adjectives, should more than one be used to describe a noun.

The order is as follows:

evaluation | size | physical quality | shape | age | colour | participle | origin | material | type | purpose

Have a go at ordering the adjectives in this sentence!

I stayed in a French, white, stone, beautiful, small, holiday-let, sixteenth-century cottage last week. 

 

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