Why does “One nice big old round yellow brick house” sound fine, but “one brick nice round yellow old big house” sound weird? Welcome to the hidden rules of English.

Rüdiger Müller [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons

1. Observation/opinion (“nice”)
2. Size (“big”)
3. Age (“old”)*
4. Shape (“round”)*
5. Colour (“yellow”)
6. Origin
7. Material (“brick”)
8. Purpose

*Other authorities flip these two.

Native speakers learn this order but usually cannot articulate it explicitly; if you’re learning English, you have to learn and internalise it as part of learning the language.

• Adjective

Categories: Language

The Generalist

I live in Auckland, New Zealand, and am curious about most things.