Mastodawn

Michael Pryor Aug 14, 2023

The English language is a wonderful thing, and we know some rules without knowing we know them.

‘Have you ever heard that patter-pitter of tiny feet? Or the dong-ding of a bell? Or hop-hip music? That’s because, when you repeat a word with a different vowel, the order is always I A O. Bish bash bosh. So politicians may flip-flop, but they can never flop-flip. It’s tit-for-tat, never tat-for-tit. This is called ablaut reduplication, and if you do things any other way, they sound very, very odd indeed.’ From ‘The Elements of Eloquence’ by Mark Forsyth.

#English #language

@MichaelPryor my favorite is how adjectives have a specific order they go in. Like "big red pimple", never "red big pimple".

Edde Aug 14, 2023

@Drew @MichaelPryor
Googled it:
"The order of adjectives in English is determiner, quantity, opinion, size, physical quality, shape, age, color/colour, origin, material, type, and purpose." 😍

Source: https://www.grammar-monster.com/lessons/order_of_adjectives.htm#:~:text=The%20order%20of%20adjectives%20in,material%2C%20type%2C%20and%20purpose.

Order of Adjectives

The order of adjectives in English is determiners, quantity, opinion, size, physical quality, shape, age, color/colour, origin, material, type, and purpose.

rainey 🌻Aug 14, 2023

@edde @Drew @MichaelPryor

Drew, I wouldn't say "never". This assumes all the adjectives are in the same valence, which is to say an A B C thing is a thing that is A, B, and C. But if one is more salient than the rest, it will be immediately before the noun. In other words, it might be a B thing that is A and C and thus an A C B thing.

Aurora Ditto Aug 14, 2023

🤩 the emoji

Hermit the Frog Aug 14, 2023

@Drew @MichaelPryor and the exceptions, like the big bad wolf.

Hermit the Frog Aug 14, 2023

@Drew @MichaelPryor funny little duck, bad little wolf, big bad wolf.
Honestly as a non-english person it seems entirely random

ekes Aug 14, 2023

@Jiriki @Drew @MichaelPryor

The other way around it doesn't roll off the tongue very well.

big bad wolf follows the iao scheme instead as you can see.

Hermit the Frog Aug 14, 2023

@ekes @Drew @MichaelPryor
yes, and it is an exception to the other order of adjectives.

Wish I could find that screenshot, it blew my mind at the time.
How there is a subconscious order to adjectives in the English language and if you put them slightly out of order you sound like a maniac😂

And the iao order interferes with it.

Michael Pryor Aug 14, 2023

@Jiriki @ekes @Drew
Remember that this I A O rule is for repeating a word with a different vowel

Hermit the Frog Aug 14, 2023

@MichaelPryor @ekes @Drew oooh that is the part I was missing (from my memory) right, right. So there *is* some sort of logic to it all.
Thanks!

Michael Pryor Aug 14, 2023

@Jiriki @Drew 'Big bad wolf' neatly follows the I A O rule, though!

Hermit the Frog Aug 14, 2023

@MichaelPryor @Drew but it doesn't follow that weird other rule! Which is the one I was thinking about when commenting half asleep 😂

The extended version of the unconscious but somehow logical order of adjectives, which makes big bad wolf an outlier even though it follows the rule op pointed out.

Something something subjective, size, color, material, origin. Pretty little green cotton French handbag
(this might be wrong but I don't have the screenshot with the lengthy explanation handy).

Sean Murthy Aug 14, 2023

@Jiriki @Drew @MichaelPryor What's a language without exceptions. English especially.

Hermit the Frog Aug 14, 2023

@smurthys @Drew @MichaelPryor sometimes I think English is quite easy to learn compared to other languages and then...
*here come the exceptions, marching down a long, long lane*

🐀 ␆Aug 14, 2023

@smurthys @Jiriki @Drew @MichaelPryor Even as a native speaker, I occasionally think that English without the exceptions would be the null set.

Hermit the Frog Aug 14, 2023

@walshman23 @smurthys @Drew @MichaelPryor
I tried to find out what that means, null set, but am only getting pages of explanations about mathematics and my tired dutch brain is grinding to a halt.

What do you mean by that?

🐀 ␆Aug 15, 2023

@Jiriki @smurthys @Drew @MichaelPryor I meant that English has so many exceptions (and so many implicit "rules") that sometimes it seems that it is nothing but exceptions. Thus, the part that is not exceptions is nothing (aka, an empty set).

Hermit the Frog Aug 15, 2023

@walshman23 @smurthys @Drew @MichaelPryor right! Thanks. And yes 😂
I only learned enough English to get by through osmosis, otherwise I don't know how far I would've gotten with it..

Boris Schapira (Pro)Aug 14, 2023

@Jiriki @Drew @MichaelPryor Or we can infer from the order of adjectives in English that "bad" is not actually an opinion about the wolf, but its function in the story.

Hermit the Frog Aug 14, 2023

@boostmarks @Drew @MichaelPryor
Yes, agree, if I understand you correctly.
Why it is a sad little wolf, and the big bad wolf.

Riley S. Faelan Aug 14, 2023

@Drew: The way I was taught the English adjective order, red big pimple is the correct order for pimples whose bigness is more constant than their redness.

barbedwire Aug 14, 2023

@Drew @MichaelPryor yes, and ESL students have to study that order! although I usually dgaf about it when speaking 😅