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I am describing a chart and got confused about my intuition and Google results. So I'd usually refer to a "solid black line" and there are 1,130,000 results (with quotes) for that against 320,000 for "black solid line". So far, so good. When it comes to "dashed black line" it sounds weird to me though it's the same wording order. There are 214,000 for that against 318,000 results for the reverse order "black dashed line".

So, my question is: dashed black line or black dashed line? (considering that I am also mentioning the solid one, I was going for the first option not to break the pattern)

Yuri Ajala
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  • Solid and broken make a better contrasting pair. Both precede the color. MUTCD – Phil Sweet Jul 21 '18 at 19:13
  • You might get this question re-opened if you edit it and asked what function solid, dashed, dotted, broken serve wrt colored lines. – Phil Sweet Jul 21 '18 at 19:17
  • I already knew the rule of the orders, it just puzzled me that there were more results for the reversed order when I searched for dashed. Anyways, I guess there is no need to reopen the issue. Thanks! – Yuri Ajala Jul 21 '18 at 20:45

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Generally the order of adjectives is: opinion, size, physical quality, shape, age, colour, origin, material, type, purpose - so... I would consider 'solid' and 'dashed' to be adjectives of physical quality, and I would write 'a solid black line' and 'a dashed black line'.

Adjectives Order (Cambridge)

Michael Harvey
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