THE MAGIC ART
The Weird Writing Rule Nobody Teaches You
You just know it when you see it
Our brains are magnificiently quirky.
Describe what you see in the above image.
There is no trick to this. Most of you will have said something like ‘a small yellow car.’
Yet if English is your first language and someone were to describe it to you as a yellow small car, your ears would tell you that, despite being correct, it sounds wrong. You instinctively know we say it the other way around.
Size comes before colour.
This isn’t a grammar rule I learned in English class. My teacher never told me what order adjectives need to be in. It is something that has naturally worked its way into my subconscious knowledge.
If I add another adjective to this set, I sense more rules. It’s a small yellow metal car. There’s no problem with that. The order dictates that the material it is made from has to come last.
It would be unusual if I described it as a metal yellow small car because that sounds peculiar. If I add my opinion, I could say it looks like a ‘cute’ car and I would have no problem knowing where to put it:
