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Post by aubrey on Sept 5, 2016 16:27:04 GMT
"Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: Opinion-Size-Age-Shape-Colour-Origin-Material-Purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac. It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out. And as size comes before colour, green great dragons can't exist." - Mark Forsyth, "Elements Of Eloquence: How To Turn the Perfect English Phrase"
Is this true?
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Post by althea on Sept 11, 2016 18:02:14 GMT
I have never thought about this,but it does make a sort of sense.
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Post by ARENA on Sept 12, 2016 8:48:28 GMT
Yes, time tv announcers this understood
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Post by Deleted on Sept 12, 2016 9:13:48 GMT
Adjectives and adverbs, words that make me shudder and switch off. Reminders of draconian times at grammar school
Does grammar really matter, in these days of text speak etc, surely the important thing is to communicate and get the message across
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Post by aubrey on Sept 13, 2016 15:25:31 GMT
Depends if you want to be down with the kids or not - I say sod them. If they want to say "Should of" and "Nothing compares 2 U ( or variants) they're not worth bothering with. I do text messages in full English, often using more words than I need to, with digressions and clauses and sub-clauses etc. It takes ages. At first it was just to make my sister tut at me, but now I just do it.
I never got the different parts of sentences, and the different types of words etc (I'm pretty sure we, at my sec. mod., were never taught), I just read a lot and picked it up from there.
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Post by althea on Sept 13, 2016 16:00:21 GMT
I know the main point of language is to communicate and so it really shouldn't matter if people say different to,or bored of it etc.
I just can't help wincing when I hear,or read it.
My mother was a stickler for correct grammar,she loved words(so do I)and encouraged us to play many word games.
In later life,my mother compiled cryptic crosswords under the name Alchemist.
I love a good cryptic crossword,one that is really obscure and clever and takes me ages to solve.
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Post by aubrey on Sept 13, 2016 19:21:48 GMT
Communication - you have to have some rules - so if one gets broken and that's ok - you can still understand what someone means - but what if the next one goes, then the next? When does the point come when you don't understand what they mean? It's just a series of small breakages, but if you don't follow the pattern you're quite literally buggered (as well as not understanding, heh heh).(And what happens when "Literally" becomes just another intensifier - what word will literally mean "literally"? We're going to need one.)
I sometimes get confused by things like history programmes done in the present tense, especially if they're talking about someone investigating the history - was that present tense about the bloke now, or the bloke then?
And I get confused by some FB posts - sometimes when people don't stick to the rules you have no idea what they're one about - that point I mentioned there has already been crossed, kicked over, stamped on, etc on FB. We'll all be speaking our own private languages and no one else will know what we're on about eventually, on FB anyway (exaggeration - I'm off for a bath).
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