Coordinate Adjectives

Marcus_Crassus

I would like to get the opinions of some of the learned members of this fine forum.

Lately my head's been in a quandary thinking about coordinate adjectives. Whether I was blissfully unaware all these years, or I innately knew how they formed, I'm not quite sure -- could well be having a midlife crisis right here :P.

For instance, 'the ugly big haunted house' is perfect and doesn't require any change or any commas. But why is that so? If I wrote 'big ugly haunted house' would it be the same and adhere to the same 'rule'?!

I quested to find an answer to why this all confused me and found this hierarchy which I was completely unaware of:

*Opinion
*Size
*Age
*Shape
*Color
*Origin
*Material
*Purpose

Under this hierarchy it basically says that one could write 'the ugly big old rectangular red English brick bomb shelter' and that would be correct as long as they're in that order and would not require any correction or commas to be placed between the adjectives. Am I right, or am I simply losing the plot here? As I've said, this hierarchy is news to me, and I've been happily unaware of its existence until a few days back.

But what would happen if I wanted to change that example around a bit? If I said, 'big ugly...' and so on, would I have to start throwing in commas? Anybody ever have trouble with this?

Sometimes I think it's at the discretion of the writer because Bukowski and Hemingway in particular seem to forgo the use of commas anyway. I suppose those two aren't the best examples when they're known for their simplistic styles.

Perhaps I'm thinking into it a little too much...

Also, there are various different forms of that hierarchy but that's the first one I saw.

Anyone any thoughts on this?

slowburner

That hierarchy is news to me too.
As a rule of thumb, if 'if' and' or 'or' can be slotted in between the adjectives, and the clause makes sense, then the comma is required.

So according to the rule; 'the ugly old big haunted house' should have three commas.

pickarooney

slowburner wrote: »

That hierarchy is news to me too.
As a rule of thumb, if 'if' and' or 'or' can be slotted in between the adjectives, and the clause makes sense, then the comma is required.

So according to the rule; 'the ugly old big haunted house' should have three commas.

That sequence just sounds wrong to me. 'Big ugly old haunted' or 'Big old ugly haunted' sound better to me.

slowburner

pickarooney wrote: »

That sequence just sounds wrong to me. 'Big ugly old haunted' or 'Big old ugly haunted' sound better to me.

Neither really flows.
Any more than three adjectives is always going to be a challenge, no matter how you punctuate it.

odds_on

OP, your hierarchy is correct except that you missed "quantity" which comes first in the list.
Generally, when adjectives belong to the same class, they become what we call coordinated adjectives, and you will want to put a comma between them: the inexpensive, comfortable shoes.

There is also a problem with some adjectives as they could be in more than one class. Is "long" a shape or size?

And English nearly always has its exceptions to the rule: It was a long, hard winter; and if you wanted to add in "cold", where would you place?

In a "string" of adjectives, "old thinking/method" was to always separate adjectives with a comma, except the adjective immediately preceding the noun.
Modern thinking says that adjectives are not separated by commas.

It is very rare to get more than three or four adjectives together and in this case, the hierarchy is useful, especially to non-native speakers trying to learn English. As native speakers we usually know when something sounds correct or not though young children may have an initial problem.