1 ADJECTIVE ORDER

In which of the following phrases does the order of the adjectives sound the most natural?
Why?
a. the Italian, delicious, pepperoni, famous pizza
b. the delicious, Italian famous, pepperoni pizza
c. the famous, delicious, Italian pepperoni pizza
d. the pepperoni delicious famous Italian pizza

General rules:

OPINION+SIZE+QUALITY/CHARACTER+AGE/SHAPE+COLOUR+ORIGIN+MATERIAL

a large well-preserved eighteenth-century French stone farmhouse

1) We don’t use more than three or four adjectives before a noun.

2) If we want to give more information, we can use additional clauses:

She bought a beautiful French stone farmhouse which is well-preserved and dates from the
eighteenth century.

2 PAIRED ADJECTIVES

1) When two adjectives describe different parts of the same thing, we use and between
them:

The chrome steel door glinted in the sun.

The chrome and steel door glinted in the sun.

2) When two adjectives describe contrasting aspects of the same thing, we put but, yet or
though between them:

Group therapy can be a simple yet effective solution to this sort of problem.

3 USING COMMAS OR 'AND'

1) Adjectives in a predicative position:

The hotel was ancient, dirty and overpriced.

We stayed at an ancient, dirty, overpriced hotel.

2) With longer lists of adjectives of the same category:

I found him a friendly, knowledgeable and dedicated guide.

I found him a friendly, knowledgeable, dedicated guide.
3) We do not use and before the last adjective when adjectives are of different categories:

We enjoyed sitting in the fantastic, soft, grey and leather seats.

4 HYPHENATED ADJECTIVES

We can create adjectives by combining two or more words with the use of a hyphen:

She is 7 years old.

She is a seven-year-old girl.

1) self-

self-confident, self-reliant, self-explanatory

2) verb + particle

To wash up. vs. To do the washing-up.

He made up that story. vs. It is a made-up story.

3) adverbs

This castle is well preserved vs. This is a well-preserved castle.

She is well known to scholars all over the world vs. She is a well-known scholar.
a newly-arranged wedding venue
On one never-to-be-forgotten occasion he turned up to work stark naked.
“Hi-honey-I-am-home” happiness
a ready-to-use cloud-based artificial intelligence

5 COMPLEX ADJECTIVE PHRASES

Complex adjective phrases usually come after nouns, most often in relative clauses.

We need people (who are) prepared to travel. (NOT: *…prepared for travel people)

But we can split expressions beginning with different, similar, the same, next, Iast, first,
second, etc., difficult, easy and comparatives and superlatives.

an idea different from yours or: a different idea from yours (NOT: *a different from yours
idea)
the train next to arrive or: the next train to arrive (NOT: * the next to arrive train)
a problem easy to solve or: an easy problem to solve (NOT: *an easy to solve problem)

ICONICITY IN LANGUAGE The principle of distance: things which belong together

conceptually tend to be put together linguistically