Adjective order

[Fishbowl Helmet]

I'm not sure if this quite qualifies as a proper writing resource, but here goes:

The Secret Rules of Adjective Order.

 

[Ursa major]

Whatever it is, I found the article interesting.

Thanks for linking to it.

 

[farntfar]

I enjoyed the article too.
It's always interesting to discover there is a rule behind things we know are right, but we don't know why.
So thanks, FH.

 

[tinkerdan]

I don't know; seems more a sense of order than of rules, although it could[in a far stretch] be considered rules of order.

It was a dark stormy night.
It was a stormy dark night.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

Fascinating! Thanks for sharing.

I love this part (emphasis mine):

In 2007, the psychologist David Kemmerer scanned the brains of volunteers as they read aloud sentences that either followed or upended the order of adjectives.

Not surprisingly, he found that reciting strings of modifiers required more cognitive effort when the strings were beaded “wrong.” That ability to make a reader pause and concentrate can be useful to writers. After all, some might view a sentence requiring greater thought to decipher as flawed, but inspiring an incremental increase in focus is, for many writers, the point of writing.

On the other hand, phrases that cleave to GSSSACPM can have a lovely fluidity—in her poem “Question,” May Swenson asks: “How will I know/ in thicket ahead/ is danger or treasure/ when Body my good/ bright dog is dead?”

The way Swenson’s “good bright dog” (general opinion, specific opinion, noun) trots across the stanza just as we expect him to says something about his obedience, his reliability, and how lost we’ll be when he’s gone.

That's just beautiful.

I got a kick out of this one, too:

Or tell it to the big bad wolf, bristling at the implication that your opinion of his character is more inherent to him than his impressive dimensions.