Last week I was extolling the virtues of a little linguistic law that we all know, but we don't know we know. You know?
The marvellously named ablaut reduplication (if you missed last week's blog, you can read it here and then post below with your excuse, and I'll consider an appropriate punishment)
(To summarise:
Definition of ablaut: a systematic variation of vowels in the same root or affix or in related roots or affixes, especially in the Indo-European languages that is usually paralleled by differences in use or meaning (as in sing, sang, sung, song)
Definition of reduplication: an act or instance of doubling or reiterating
and it's why we wear flip flops and why the clock tick-tocks.)
But there is another even more fascinating English rule we all follow without realising it—the order we place adjectives in sentences.
To quote Mark Forsyth's The Elements of Eloquence: How to Turn the Perfect English Phrase, the correct order is always:
opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose noun.
And the often quoted example is:
a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife.
Get the order wrong, and your sentence is just...weird. I mean, we're never going to find green little men on Mars now, are we?
So Little [size] Red [colour] Riding [purpose] Hood [noun] fits the pattern.
But hang on, what about our friend (and Red's nemesis), the Big [size] Bad [opinion] Wolf [Noun]?!
Surely he should be Bad Big Wolf?
Well, he is an example of the other fascinating facet of English.
Every rule has its exceptions.
In Wolfie's case, he's following a whole different set of rules, the i, a, o order of vowels we talked about last week!
mind…blown
Somehow, 743 million people speak English as a second language.
How, I'll never know.
I'm off to add Mark's book to my reading list.
And if you need a hand with all this English-writey-thing, give me a shout.
Laters!