We’ve already discussed that equal adjectives should be separated by commas, as in this example: Or: The hopeless and broken man fell into the stinky and polluted gutter. The broken, hopeless man fell into the polluted, stinky gutter. So, the sentence above could also be written as: The hopeless, broken man fell into the stinky, polluted gutter.Ī good rule of thumb is if the adjectives can be joined by and or the order can be changed and the sentence still makes sense, use a comma. The small black cat walked toward the old leather chair.Īnd remember that adjectives in the same category should be separated by commas, as in this example: Do not use a comma to separate cumulative adjectives from different categories. To make the decision easier, remember the royal order. There is sometimes confusion when deciding if commas are needed to separate a string of adjectives. The royal order is the reason there are little green men on Mars, but if you change the order to green little men it sounds strange. Most of us probably learned this rule in primary school and don’t even know that we know it. If you think back to the last thing you wrote, you more than likely used the royal order of adjectives without realizing it. Qualifier (final adjective, often an integral part of the noun: vacation resort, wedding dress, race car) Material (describing what something is made of: silk, copper, wooden) Observation or opinion (original, appealing, cheap) The royal order of adjectives dictates that those categories absolutely have to be in this order:ĭeterminer (articles and other limiters: the, my, your) The royal orderĪdjectives fall into categories. An adjective is predicative when a verb separates it from the noun or pronoun it describes – for example, the teacher was furious. An adjective is attributive when it stands in front of a noun and describes it – for example, the white dog ran across the road. There are two kinds of adjectives: attributive and predicative. An adjective is a word that describes (editors say modifies) a noun. But occasionally there can be some confusion. Writers typically don’t use more than two or three adjectives at a time, and we don’t seem to struggle much in getting their order correct. It’s the reason we instinctively say “the shiny new blue car” and not “the blue new shiny car”. But I ran across it again while editing a recent blog post. Remember the royal order of adjectives? Nope, neither do I.
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