Blackladder

I've been Reading a wonderful English grammar book and came across the following definition of the positional order of adjectives in English:

'Opinion - size - age - shape - colour - origin - material - purpose - noun.

So you can have a sentence like:

'A Lovely Little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife', but fiddle with the Word order in the slightest and it becomes unEnglish.

I wonder if anyone on here who is married to or lives with a Francophone could ask them to translate the above sentence into French, just to see what order the adjectives arrive in!
Merci d'avance
Blackie

dmu

WOW, let's have a go, but green and silver don't go together and I've altered colour and material.

"Un beau, vieux, petit couteau à tailler rectangulaire, argenté, en acier, d'origine française"
I'll check with OH when he comes in, but meanwhile, qui dit mieux?

MrsK

this is fun...

Un ancien et joli petit couteau a tailler francais a manche vert et lamme rectangulaire et en argent ...?!

tough tough tough!!! ( and i am french!)

Blackladder

Great answers both of you!
If you're interested, the book is called 'The Elements of Eloquence' by Mark Forsyth (12.99 RRP) and has some Lovely arcane Words in it (did you know what 'enallage' means?
Nor me
It is 'the deliberate use of a grammatical error'
Nice Little Christmas Stocking book!

dmu

OH suggests (but doubting the sanity of the question)

"Un beau, petit couteau à tailler, ancien (or usé, but not vieux), à lame rectangulaire en acier, à manche argenté, et d'origine française"

Novocastrian

Eh bien, M. Echelle noire...

Blackladder

Novo,
T'as trop fumé la moquette?

Novocastrian

Nope. Hardwood floors, innit?

Blackladder

MrsK
Welcome to the forum!
As you will have noted, The Goon Show has nothing on us - and Tweedpipe will soon be along with an enticing poster to prove me right.

Novo howse the owlse?

Lorna at Vicenza

More difficult is not just knowing what is an adjective, but what kind.

At my English school I was taught: Subject, verb, noun, adjective and adverb, basically.

My 10 year old in Italy came to me with his homework and said "mummy what is this word" An adjective - I said. And he said "yes but what kind? Is it demonstrative, quantifying or qualifying or negative?"

I think Italian grammar is very intense and too detailed for such young ages. Other Italians argue with me that it sould be just so..... and then as adults they forget and never speak all the proper proper tenses.

MrsK

thanks :-)

Tweedpipe

And talking about us goons. What time is it........?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tjHlFPTwVk

Tweedpipe

The title of this thread reminds me of a joke (with my apologies to Blackladder).
Nip across to Le Rendez-Vous site.......

Novocastrian

Charmant.

And as to owles?

dmu

... and what about French "epithètes" and "attributs", adjectives respectively before and after the noun?
It's the same in French Grammar, and all Primary children are capable of grammatical analysis by the time they go up to Secondary school. Which is why it's so difficult for English children in particular, over 11, to go straight to French Collège - not only in all the general subjects, but also they're quite likely to get bad marks in English because they don't understand the French grammatical terms.