The Royal Order of Adjectives
Yes, you read that right! In the English language, there is a royal order of adjectives.
Why? Adjectives themselves fall into categories, which is what determines their order. To native speakers of English, this order is intuitive. It is the reason why “the blue new shiny bike” doesn’t make as much sense (or is as easily read) as “the shiny, new blue bike.”
So, What Is the “Royal Order”?
Adjectives fall into nine categories:
Determiner: articles (a, an, the), possessives (your, his, hers, my, their, our), numbers (ten, several, some), and demonstratives (this, that, those, these);
Observation/Opinion: words that reflect how someone sees an object/person, or how they feel about it (cold, beautiful, tasty, uptight, rough, priceless);
Size: huge, tiny, itty-bitty, gargantuan;
Shape: square, oblong, circular, triangular;
Age: ancient, young, old, new;
Color: purple, green, orange, red, vermillion;
Origin: Canadian, Irish, Hawaiian, African;
Material: wooden, velvet, metallic, styrofoam;
Qualifier: nouns that act as adjectives to identify the type of noun that follows: dress shirt, hound dog, evening gown. (They may also be an adjective that ends in "-ing" and describes the noun’s purpose: walking stick, marching orders, swimming cap.)
Are There Exceptions?
Of course there are! (When are there not?) You may need to change the order if your message will be unclear otherwise. This most often occurs with compound nouns—tiny home, African violets, and so on.
Let’s take “tiny house” as an example. In recent years, this has moved from meaning a house that is small to also referring to a specific type of home. So, you could write “They bought a new wooden tiny house” even though the royal order states it should be written as “They bought a new tiny wooden house.” In these cases, context will dictate which is correct.
There are also exceptions that are less clear. For example, “He has an ugly wool sweater” makes sense, but we also say things like “He has a big old ugly sweater.” With the royal order, this should be written as “He has an ugly big old sweater.” Sounds weird, right? There’s no clear reasoning as to why apart from the fact that “big old ugly” is generally accepted, especially in speech, as a common unit.
Commas and Adjectives
If you’ve ever agonized over where to place commas in a sentence with multiple adjectives, knowing the royal order is a big help! That’s because whether or not commas are necessary depends on their categories.
Use commas when two (or more) adjectives come from the same category:
Kate picked blue, purple, and yellow wildflowers for the bouquet.
We stayed in a comfortable, opulent hotel.
Do not use commas when two (or more) adjectives come from different categories:
Richard loved reading old Irish myths.
They stored the boxes in the cold small attic.
There are also two situations in which you never use a comma. First, do not use one between the final adjective and the noun it’s describing. (The below examples are incorrect.)
Kate picked blue, purple, and yellow, wildflowers for the bouquet.
They stored the boxes in the cold small, attic.
And second, never put a comma after a determiner—the first category of adjectives. (Remember these are articles, possessive, numbers, and demonstratives. I have bolded the determiners in the examples below).
That old red sportscar. (Correct)
That, old red sportscar. (Incorrect)
Nine loud, raucous crows sat on a branch. (Correct)
Nine, loud, raucous crows sat on a branch. (Incorrect)
I love the royal order because not only do I think it’s fun (just me?), but it also helps with understanding where to put those commas! (For more, be sure to check out my series on Pesky Punctuation.)
Please feel free to ask any questions or leave a comment … and as always, don’t forget to keep creating!
(Cover photo by Jared Supia on Unsplash; all examples written by Jennifer Dinsmore)