The clever little old grammar rule you didn't know you knew

by: Anne O'Connell (24 January 2017)

You may think you're not a grammarian, or you may be able to spot what's right and what's not but not be able to explain why. But did you know that there's a rule to determine the order of adjectives? Even if you didn't, you probably put the descriptors in the right order (opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose noun) without even realising it.

Last September, an excerpt from Mark Forsyth's book The Elements of Eloquence was used by BBC Culture's editor Matthew Anderson in a tweet. It got around a bit, to say the least: it currently has 53k retweets and 78k likes – I think that counts as going viral... Mark's article which followed explained that we know it's right to say outrageous big fat presidential lie but not orange tiny-handed deluded scary redneck. It's worth a read: http://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/story/20160908-the-language-rules-we-know-but-dont-know-we-know.

What other rules do we know but don't know we know? I don't know...

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