What's the right order?

THE STAR'S MIND OUR ENGLISH of Thursday April 12, 2007
What's the right order?
By RALPH BERRY
THE ploughman homeward plods his weary way." This line from Thomas Gray's poem 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard' is famous because the same words can be recycled in different order.
Try "Homeward plods the ploughman". "Weary the ploughman plods", "His weary way plods", with more to follow, and you'll soon get as weary as the wretched ploughman.
Still, his fate reminds us of a feature of the language: word order matters. Gray may have arrived at the best order, but there is often an alternative to think about.
The problems of word order often arise from simple clumsiness. As in:
(a) The film has a similar plot to that of Shakespeare's The Tempest.
This should be revised to:
(b) The film has a plot similar to that of Shakespeare's The Tempest.
Again:
(a) The image created in the advertisement is what really makes us buy the product and not the product itself.
(b) The image created in the advertisement, not the product itself, is what makes us buy it.
Again:
(a) I will never forget the day July 17, 1986, when I began my first job.
(b) I will never forget July 17, 1986, the day I began my first job.
Burchfield quotes some carelessness in newspaper reports, giving rise to unintentional humour:
"She strongly disapproves of our living together for religious reasons." All the writer had to do was to begin the sentence with "For religious reasons", which disposes of the disturbing suggestion that there might be religious reasons for living together.
"Sure enough, someone at the hospital where she was born erroneously had typed in 'male'." Just move "erroneously" over to the end of the sentence, or after "had", and no one will suspect the unhappy mite of being born erroneously.
"Carolyn Blount donated the $21.5 million complex along with her husband Winton." All this, and Winton too!
It's easy to see that the order in those sentences can be revised in a more natural and logical way. Sometimes, though, it's hard to see why this should be. J.R.R. Tolkien tells us that he wrote his first story when he was seven:
My mother ... pointed out that one could not say "a green great dragon", but had to say "a great green dragon". I wondered why, and still do so.
And so do I. Tolkien's mother was right, but I can't find a rule that explains why she should be right. What can I say? Cultivate an ear for the right word order. Feeble, I know, but still.
I hazard, though, that Tolkien's mother speaks in support of expectation, the general sense that people's minds move along the groove of great green dragon. That is proper for ordinary, everyday prose. But in imaginative writing, still more so poetry, one can accept the slight shock and challenge to the expected.
In a fairy tale, why should not young Tolkien write a green great dragon? It has a strange, compelling effect on the mind. That reversal of the normal, almost the paranormal, is in context its own justification.
And there's a poem by William Morris which ends "When I rose up, also I heard a bell." In ordinary prose, that also would seem misplaced. In context, also has a strange, hallucinatory quality. And what does it mean? That the speaker heard other sounds? Just what does also refer to?
I think we just have to accept that certain word orders are fixed, for general purposes. They are traditional. You can say, "That's a fine old house." You can't say, "That's an old fine house." "Fine old" is an integral usage, and is applied in the same way to sherry and whisky. That version is coded into the language.
Let's test it further. It has to be "a poor old man", and not "old poor man". It has to be "a pretty young woman". You'd do well to place a comma after "pretty", though, otherwise the word could be taken as an adverb meaning "fairly". As in, "she's a pretty young woman to be applying for this job".
In speech, the intended meaning will be clear through inflection, with a slight emphasis on "young". (Otherwise, you might be implying that the young woman's prettiness might have a disturbing effect on office relationships, and we really ought to employ someone distinctly plainer.)
But now let's add an adjective. "She's a pretty young Burmese woman." The basic linkage here is between "Burmese" and "woman". The other adjectives are, as it were, front-loaded, they are added before the core pairing. I'd suggest that the best word order comes from identifying the core pairing. Then the extras can be tacked on, in front.
My advice is to follow your instincts. But do not be distracted by pretty, young women, especially if they are pretty young.
Comments from J.C., Kuala Lumpur published in MIND OUR ENGLISH of April 18, 2007
There is an order of adjectives
WHEN I read the heading of the article ‘What’s the right order?’ by Ralph Berry (April 12), I thought to myself: “What a great subject to write about!” However, when I read on, I realised the writer was just rambling without really giving the reader any idea of what adjective order is or means.
While he cited many examples, I was appalled when he ended the column by saying: “My advice is to follow your instincts ...”
And in response to why Tolkien’s mother was right (in telling him that he couldn’t say “a green great dragon”), Berry said, “I can’t find a rule that explains why she should be right. What can I say? Cultivate an ear for the right word order. Feeble, I know, but still.”
The writer is indeed feeble in his research efforts on the topic. Google “adjective order” and one would have enough hits to put Berry to shame.
Adjective order is not a random or inexplicable part of English. Generally, adjective order is grouped as follows:
OpinionSizeAgeShapeColourOriginMaterialPurpose+ noun
(taken from http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/410/grammar/adjord.htm)
Thus, we say:
a great (size) green (colour) dragon (noun)
a pretty (opinion) young (age) woman (noun)
or as in the writer’s other examples (which are limited to mainly opinion- and age-type adjectives):
a pretty (opinion) young (age) Burmese (origin) woman (noun)
a fine (opinion) old (age) house (noun)
a poor (opinion) old (age) man (noun)
There are other examples:
a big (size) round (shape) blue (colour) salad (purpose) bowl (noun)
an antique (age) wooden (material) table (noun)
I hope that the editor of Mind Our English would set the record straight. I can’t imagine telling our readers to simply “cultivate an ear for the right word order”. – J.C., Kuala Lumpur
Ed: You are absolutely right. Two other readers, David King of Kuala Lumpur and Kengt of Penang, wrote in to say the same.
We had in the past run articles on the order of adjectives. Unfortunately, Mr Berry was not privy to them. The fault is not his entirely, however. I accept responsibility for not alerting him to it.
My comments acknowledged by The Editor but not published
I refer to the article entitled "What is the right order?" in Mind Our English of April 12 in which the writer has highlighted ways of avoiding misplaced/dangling modifiers while indicating that poetry (on account of poetic licence) needs to be appreciated disregarding normal
gramatical rules sometimes.
However, for "a great green dragon", "That's a fine old house", "a poor old man", "a pretty young woman" and "She's a pretty young Burmese woman", they are all in the order given in http://www.reallifelog.com/Dirkjan/archive/33562/ being an article blogged (by English Grammar Lexicon - Grammar and Usage Guide - Learning & Publication Center (Kowloon - Hong Kong) of a group of expatriate (native English) teachers who offer tutorial services to students and professionals) in the name of "Where To Place The Adjective?" which lists the order as:
1. Opinion Example: an interesting book, a boring lecture 2. Dimensio n Example: a big apple, a thin wallet 3. Age Example: a new car, a modern building, an ancient ruin 4. Shape Example: a square box, an oval mask, a round ball 5. Color Example: a pink hat, a blue book, a black coat 6. Origin Example: some Italian shoes, a Canadian town, an American car 7. Material Example: a wooden box, a woolen sweater, a plastic toy

It is worthwhile to visit the said site for further details.

Shown below is the order given by FADZILAH AMIN in THE STAR'S MIND OUR ENGLISH of Wednesday January 31, 2007 for comparison: QuoteMichael Swan in Practical English Usage gives the order in which the different kinds of adjectives should appear before a noun. His order is: 1. colour, 2. origin, 3. material, 4. purpose, with other kinds of adjectives to go before those. The Collins Cobuild English Grammar (CCEG) uses different terms for the order, ie: 1. qualitative, 2. colour, 3. classifying. Your first sentence has therefore the correct order, according to these two books, i.e.: a) My uncle bought a beautiful antique Japanese wooden table. I will summarise what kinds of adjectives (according to Swan and CCEG, respectively) are in the sentence, to justify their order: 1. beautiful – other/qualitative 2. antique – other/classifying 3. Japanese – origin/classifying 4. wooden – material/classifying According to CCEG, the main difference between a qualitative adjective and a classifying one is that the first is gradable ( e.g. we can say "very beautiful" or "less beautiful") and the second is not (e.g. we don't say "very antique" or "less Japanese" or "more wooden"), although some adjectives can be either qualitative or classifying according to the context. Unquote
As for misplaced/dangling modifiers stated in my comments, I have in my earlier post under the subject of "Faulty sentence" touched upon a dangling modifier and I shall in my next posting mention misplaced modifiers.
Kengt, Penang