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Which of these two sentences is grammatically correct and why?

  1. nice blue cotton Korean blouse
  2. nice blue Korean cotton blouse

I picked number 1 but it seems number 2 is correct, I would like to know the reason, I think number 1 sounds better, is there a rule I don't know about?

Laurel
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Ali Ahmadi
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    It depends on what is chosen to be emphasized, and whether, eg, "Korean blouse" is taken to be a peculiar form of blouse, or just denotes the origin of the blouse. You can follow the prescriptive list provided by Benjamin Harman below, but there are many factors that might cause the list's "rules" to be bypassed. – Hot Licks Apr 27 '21 at 00:59
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    @HotLicks I agree, I prefer the first ordering as I tend to think of it as being a 'Korean blouse' made of 'blue cotton' so tend to group the adjectives accordingly. Non-native students of English should be told that native speakers aren't taught 'the order of adjectives' and don't stick rigidly to it. In fact most of us never knew that there was a correct order until recently. Having said that this question concerns the rules that are part of a curriculum so, in that context, number two is correct. I just hope no pedant insists that our children are taught and tested on this 'rule'! – BoldBen Apr 27 '21 at 03:23
  • The usual order is 2. "nice, blue Korean cotton blouse". Note the punctuation. – BillJ Apr 27 '21 at 08:54

1 Answers1

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According to the Cambridge English Dictionary, the order of adjectives in English is to be:

  1. opinion (e.g., unusual, lovely, beautiful)
  2. size (e.g., big, small, tall)
  3. physical quality (e.g., thin, rough, untidy)
  4. shape (e.g., round, square, rectangular)
  5. age (e.g., young, old, youthful)
  6. colour (e.g., blue, red, pink)
  7. origin (e.g., Dutch, Japanese, Turkish)
  8. material (e.g., metal, wood, plastic)
  9. type (e.g., general-purpose, four-sided, U-shaped)
  10. purpose (e.g., cleaning, hammering, cooking)

Based on that, the proper order of adjectives in your example and proper way to write it would be: "nice, blue, Korean, cotton blouse" (i.e., nice(1), blue(6), Korean(7), cotton(8) blouse). That means that 2 is indeed the correct order.

Note: What you've labled as 2 is not a sentence, as you stated, nor is it properly written as coordinate adjectives require commas separating them, as seen in my answer above in bold.

Benjamin Harman
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  • nice, blue, Korean, and cotton are not coordinate adjectives. Coordinate adjectives are ones which are in the same position in the adjective order. They can go in either order, and we usually put commas between them. Cumulative adjectives are ones which are in different positions in the adjective order, and we do not usually put commas between them. See this website. – Peter Shor Apr 27 '21 at 01:27
  • @PeterShor So what happens when there is a mixture of coordinate and cumulative adjectives, for instance "This is an unusual beautiful blue Korean cotton blouse"? Should we, having started with coordinate adjectives, continue to separate the adjectives with commas? – BoldBen Apr 27 '21 at 03:36
  • @BoldBen: I'd leave them all out. This rule isn't followed very faithfully; if you search Google books for "a dark, quiet room" or "a quiet, dark room", the majority of the hits have commas, but a substantial fraction leave them out. However, I only saw one comma in the first 50 hits for "a big red chair". – Peter Shor Apr 27 '21 at 10:49
  • @BoldBen: But it looks like I'm wrong. Searching Google Books for "small quiet dark" and "small dark quiet", the majority of the hits have two commas. So I would guess that most publishers have the rule that they should use two commas if there are three adjectives which are a mixture of cumulative and coordinate. I don't know what they would do with five adjectives, most of which are cumulative, like your example. – Peter Shor Apr 27 '21 at 11:00
  • Commas are too required between all coordinate adjectives, not just those in the same position, even that link (https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar/adjectives/what-is-a-coordinate-adjective.html) you site as contradicting that fact doesn't contradict it but agrees with it, agrees with my answer. The commas between all coordinate adjectives are how we know, for example, the difference between a "hot pink sweater," a sweater that's the color "hot pink," and a "hot, pink sweater," an overly warm sweater that's pink, "hot" a coordinate adjective of "sweater" instead of modifying "pink." – Benjamin Harman Apr 27 '21 at 20:12
  • In fact, if it were as you say and commas only went between adjectives of the same position instead of also adjectives of different position, like in my prior example where "hot" is ranked position 3 and pink is ranked position 6, then that would have us writing things like "an unusual, beautiful tall, wide four-sided, U-shaped house," with no commas appearing between the series of adjectives of different position and which is just absurd, instead of writing "an unusual, beautiful, tall, wide, four-sided, U-shaped house" like we would normally and correctly write. – Benjamin Harman Apr 27 '21 at 20:19
  • @Benjamin Harman: Then please explain why, when I search for "big red chair," nearly all the hits are punctuated "big red chair" and not "big, red chair". – Peter Shor Apr 27 '21 at 20:45
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    Has it got something to do with Graham Norton? :-) – BoldBen Apr 27 '21 at 20:51
  • It's not for me to explain why random, unnamed people in random, uncited examples may write something a certain away, especially given how so many people on the Internet write ungrammatically. What's for me is to answer Ali Ahmadi's question accurately and to substantiate that accuracy with grammar sources, which I've done. Now, it's true I hadn't sourced the bit about commas, but then you came along and provided me the source, which I've now added to my answer, so thank you for that, even if you did misinterpret it as saying the opposite of what it truly says in order to disagree with me. – Benjamin Harman Apr 27 '21 at 22:02