Grammar Rule

Here’s a theory … I think it has to do with the way we often use “little” in English — sometimes, it almost is an opinion descriptor, rather than size — it essentially means “cute.” :)

This is so fascinating!!! Nerdy and intriguing all at once. Thank you for this nerdy insightful short post ;)

Interesting post. Enjoyed reading all the comments.

Someone famous and smart (George Bernard Shaw? Oscar Wilde?) wrote the GHOTI spells fish. GH as in cough, O as in women, and TI as in motion.

I tutor English as a second language and when I saw this, I began to try and find exceptions. None so far and I am wondering if this is a ‘natural’ rule that applies in other languages. I have spoken Hebrew and Spanish in my dark past-I think I followed this ‘rule’ in these other languages too, and perhaps I was not speaking like a native.

My advice, forget this rule–Language is an instinctive attempt to communicate, and grammar and rules change whether the grammarians and committees like it or not. Correctness is in the ‘eye’ of the beholder. You internalized this order as you learned to speak. If someone said, “This red, old, ugly dress”, you would still get the idea, and that is what is ultimately important.

Great post! Like other’s have said, it’s hard to stop thinking about this one! So interesting!

I teach this in fourth grade! A fun grammar lesson that the kids enjoy figuring out! :)

Maybe “friendly” qualifies as purpose? Especially when referring to dogs.

Nice one! In your example, ‘friendly’ isn’t really so much of an opinion but describing the dog’s temperament. :)

i saw this a couple days ago, and have not been able to stop thinking about it!!!

I love grammar. More of this, please.

I think “a charming little house” works because we often thing of “little houses” being their own thing (ie “Little House on the Prairie”).

This is an epiphany – brilliant!

This post is everything. I’m reading Steven Pinker’s “The Sense of Style” and looooving his take on modern grammar, through a neuroscientific and linguistic view. Highly recommend!

Love these posts — from one word nerd to another Joanna! <3

This is so great! :) I love the English nerd posts!!

Love this. Speaking of, here’s a grammar-related concern (grammar row!) with far-reaching implications: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/11301815/Grammar-row-Woman-bishops-and-woman-presidents-make-me-mad.html

Seriously important–and not just because I’m an editor by trade. :)

So let’s hear it for “female president”–not “woman president.”

I’ve been thinking about this s lot since I saw this the other day on Facebook. I’ve just tried it out “sweetest little boy” works, but “little sweetest boy” doesn’t. English really is an interesting language!

As another layer of nerdiness, if you’ve read “thinking fast and slow” by Daniel Kahneman doing this “instinctively” would be done by the “fast” part of your brain but when you first learnt it it would have been done by the “slow” rational part of your brain (so you would have had to have thought it through consciously, rather than your brain processing it automatically)

So if you really want to nerd out, check out this post on the Language Log blog: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=27890

The “rule” is actually more of a guideline. We don’t say the “bad big wolf,” which follows the rule about opinion before size, but the “big bad wolf.”

English: the language with an exception to almost every rule.

I learned this rule when I was studying English: “opinion-size-length-colour-pattern-nationality”.

Love and need it. I’m Italian.

Loved this Grammar nerd unit! it’s a funny quirk about adjectives that how sometimes size and opinion flips. On contrary the rule says that adjectives in English have to be in perfect order.

I’m not a regular follower here, but somewhat of a grammar nerd. Saw this on Bloglovin’ (notice the end apostrophe you nerds!). So delightfully, educationally thought-provoking. (Did I get the commas right?) I love to mess with that order from time to time to create a special emphasis which is produced by deliberately tampering with accepted norms, as in the example of the “large, generous woman”, or to emphasis “generous” and relate it to character rather than size “the generous, large woman”.

This must be going viral these days because I was discussing this with a fellow translator. We are both native speakers of the Greek language, with English as a second language, and we remember being told at school (around the age of 14) about this (or at least part of it). It’s funny though, how we don’t remember making a conscious effort to apply it and just learned to do it by experience, like native speakers do.

I will be sharing this post with my husband. His first language is German and we have these kinds of discussions all the time! German is so exact all the time. And thus he would say all of this matters very much.

I would not say dorkiest, rather it is the boldest bitty brand-new boxy black-inked Brooklynesque broadband bettering blog post ever!

I really love this!!! Thank you for posting!!! These are some of my favourite posts!

Yes I know this rule, but only because I teach English as a second language! I remember being stunned when I saw there was actually a rule. Damned if I can ever remember it though; I always have to check my notes before I teach it. There are so may things us native speakers just naturally know how to say but we don’t know why.

I am also the mother of a sweet four-year-old Canadian boy!

I LOVE these grammar posts. I sent it to all my fellow nerds. It’s amazing that we absorb these types of language rules without formally learning them. No wonder learning a second language is so tough!

Do they even teach grammar in school any more? I can’t count the number of times I hear some one saying “me and Susie” or “Myself and John”. Or
“I need them papers”. And I cringe every time I hear someone say they went to the liberry and I seen that movie. I fear I’ve become somewhat of a grammar Nazi, even though I’m sure I make the occasional mistake also. But some of these examples are so egregious, I can’t get past them.

Proper grammar is not nerdy it’s awesome! What a funny quirk that we all seem to have, although I think a rocking wooden chair sounds like much more fun.

I am from Barcelona and I used to babysit a boy who attended a British school and he knew by heart this small rhyme:

In my nice big flat

There’s an old round box

For my green swiss hat

And my woolly walking socks.

Maybe someone has already posted it but I always go back to it when I am writing in english. Is perfect

Thank You for your blog :)

I love this and it coincides with my frustration reading and hearing so many redundancies such as, “tiny, small” used to describe something. Makes me want to shout, “Pick one, but don’t use both!”

Here’s a further grammar nerd question – are there supposed to be commas in the long string of adjectives about the whittling knife? I remember learning that if an adjective described the noun rather than the adjective immediately following it, then it needed a comma to separate it from the next adjective: “old, rectangular, green, French, knife.” But all those commas are so disruptive! Anyone know the official rule?

Oh! These posts are super good for my little, old, Argentinian, brain.
(Did I mess it up?)

Alina
http://www.eclecticalu.blogspot.com

So crazy! I was reading it and thinking “I didn’t know that…” but when I read your examples it made perfect sense. I love fun tidbits like this!

This seriously just blew my mind!!

I was a Lit major…you have no idea how much I love this post!
Bravo!

Sorry, Jo, but the comments are reminding me of this….

Which word did he emphasize? Did he say, “Why would Jerry bring anything?” or, “Why would Jerry bring anything?” Did he emphasize “Jerry” or “bring.”

I love this!

Okay. If you’re going to get excited about nerdy grammar rules, then Cup of Jo needs to stop using “excited for” and excited to.” It is “excited about.” Sorry, but that’s been bugging me for years. I’ll shut up now.