Hyperbaton and the unwritten law of order of adjectives in English

Mark Forsyth’s description of hyperbaton (putting words in an odd order) in his book “The Elements of Eloquence” is the subject of a tweet that is currently trending on Twitter:

“opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose”

See also: Making Rhetoric Relevant

2 Comments

Niels Grundtvig Nielsen

“what oft was thought, but ne’er so well expressed” – I enjoyed Forsyth’s book a great deal. I’d quibble about the dragons example, though; I feel that if you had two classes Great Dragon and Lesser Dragon it would then be legitimate to talk about “a green Great Dragon” or “a bronze Lesser Dragon” because the size qualifier + noun is pretty well a single idea in its own right. Always good for us to be encouraged to think about why we say what we say, though, and I’ve recommended the Ternion Set to several people.

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