密歇根新闻广播 英语中多个形容词排列顺序的潜规则 你意识到了吗

A few weeks ago, a tweet went viral, because it explained something about adjectives that many people didn't realize they already knew.

Think about how you would describe someone's eyes.

Would you describe them as "blue beautiful big eyes"? Probably not. That sounds weird¹, right?

You'd probably say "beautiful big blue eyes" without even thinking about what order to put the adjectives in. But why?

The answer to that question was the subject of a tweet from the BBC's Matt Anderson, which cites Matt Forsyth's book

The Elements of Eloquence².

For a lot of people, this was a "mind blown" moment, since most of us who grew up speaking English naturally order our adjectives in a certain way without realizing it.

However, Anne Curzan says this rule isn't quite as hard and fast as the excerpt³ makes it sound.

"Overall, the rule is generally true. A lot of the time, adjectives do come in that order. But it's not true to say that if they ever come in a different order, you will sound like a maniac," she says.

The rule holds up nearly 80% of the time, according to Curzan, but there are definitely exceptions.

Think about the huffing, puffing⁴ wolf that terrorized the Three Little Pigs.

If we were to follow the rule and put opinion before size, the character would be called the Bad Big Wolf instead of the Big Bad Wolf.

Obviously, that just sounds wrong. Still, the fact that this hidden rule applies to nearly 80% of the things we say is pretty amazing.

1 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

2 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。

3 excerpt   

n.摘录，选录，节录

参考例句：

• This is an excerpt from a novel.这是一部小说的摘录。
• Can you excerpt something from the newspaper? 你能从报纸上选录些东西吗？

4 puffing   

v.使喷出( puff的现在分词 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧

参考例句：

• He was puffing hard when he jumped on to the bus. 他跳上公共汽车时喘息不已。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• My father sat puffing contentedly on his pipe. 父亲坐着心满意足地抽着烟斗。 来自《简明英汉词典》