美国国家公共电台 NPR BBC Editor Highlights Often Overlooked English Language Rule

BBC Editor Highlights Often Overlooked English Language Rule

play pause stop mute unmute max volume 00:0002:19repeat repeat off Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser¹ to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: 

And you'll never see a movie called "My Greek, Fat, Big Wedding."

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: 

Or hear a song called polka dot, yellow, itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie (ph) bikini.

CORNISH: That's because of a rule in the English language about the order in which adjectives are used before a noun.

MARK FORSYTH: You've got to go opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose, noun. So you can have a lovely, little, old, rectangular, green, French, silver whittling² knife, but you can't mess that order up. And if you do, you start something really very, very odd.

CORNISH: That's Mark Forsyth, author of "The Elements Of Eloquence³: How To Turn The Perfect English Phrase." He says most native English speakers intuitively know to place their adjectives by opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose.

SHAPIRO: And that means big and fat before Greek and itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie (ph) before polka dot and yellow.

CORNISH: Forsyth says nobody knows why adjectives must be in this order, but he says if you mess with the order, you can get a very startling effect.

FORSYTH: It will make people stop in their tracks and wonder why they feel it's wrong.

CORNISH: He says when "Lord Of The Rings" author J.R.R. Tolkien was a boy, he wrote a story.

FORSYTH: And it was about a green, great dragon, and his mother said you can't have a green, great dragon. And he said - why not? And she said, I don't know, but you can't.

SHAPIRO: BBC culture editor Matthew Anderson read Forsyth's book, found it interesting and tweeted about the proper order of adjectives. He has been retweeted around 50,000 times as of today.

MATTHEW ANDERSON: Now you wouldn't think that that's the kind of thing that's going to send the internet wild.

CORNISH: Anderson's Twitter feed is now filled with replies, like, I need a brand new, read, correcting pen.

SHAPIRO: And colorless, green ideas sleep furiously with great, blue unicorns⁴.

CORNISH: One person who saw his tweet was Quartz⁵ writer and English major Cassie Werber. She says rules like this one are meticulously⁶ taught to non-native English speakers, and they're one reason why the language can seem scary.

CASSIE WERBER: It's something that we can do as native speakers, but seems almost impossible to somebody trying to learn it. Imagine a Hungarian 10-year-old trying to learn that order of adjectives in front of a noun in a completely foreign language. It's really, really difficult.

CORNISH: Werber says she's planning to write about a brand new solution for people who find this rule hard to remember. It's an internet bot that arranges your adjectives in the proper order.

1 browser   

n.浏览者

参考例句：

• View edits in a web browser.在浏览器中看编辑的效果。
• I think my browser has a list of shareware links.我想在浏览器中会有一系列的共享软件链接。

2 whittling   

v.切，削（木头），使逐渐变小( whittle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Inflation has been whittling away their savings. 通货膨胀使他们的积蓄不断减少。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is whittling down the branch with a knife to make a handle for his hoe. 他在用刀削树枝做一把锄头柄。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 eloquence   

n.雄辩；口才，修辞

参考例句：

• I am afraid my eloquence did not avail against the facts.恐怕我的雄辩也无补于事实了。
• The people were charmed by his eloquence.人们被他的口才迷住了。

4 unicorns   

n.（传说中身体似马的）独角兽( unicorn的名词复数 )；一角鲸；独角兽标记

参考例句：

• Unicorns are legendary beasts. 独角兽是传说里的野兽。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Assemble50 Elder Druids, 30 Silver Unicorns and10 Green Dragons do defend it. 募集50个德鲁伊长老，30只银色独角兽和10条绿龙用于防御。 来自互联网

5 quartz   

n.石英

参考例句：

• There is a great deal quartz in those mountains.那些山里蕴藏着大量石英。
• The quartz watch keeps good time.石英表走时准。

6 meticulously   

adv.过细地，异常细致地；无微不至；精心

参考例句：

• The hammer's silvery head was etched with holy runs and its haft was meticulously wrapped in blue leather. 锤子头是纯银制成的，雕刻着神圣符文，而握柄则被精心地包裹在蓝色的皮革中。 来自辞典例句
• She is always meticulously accurate in punctuation and spelling. 她的标点和拼写总是非常精确。 来自辞典例句