I was proofreading a document from a friend and came across the phrase “military experimental vehicle”. This phrasing was so obviously wrong that I could hardly believe that he wrote it as a native English speaker. It should clearly be “experimental military vehicle”. I did a Google search to confirm my suspicions, and indeed the latter gets 6000 hits vs. 88 for the former. Unfortunately, I cannot articulate why.
I am aware of the various rules of thumb, like that opinions go before color (“delicious red apple”), but none of the lists I found really work for “military” and “experimental”. At best, both fall under the “purpose” category and thus should be tied. And yet one ordering is clearly superior to the other.
Is there some more general rule that I’ve internalized but cannot articulate?
I think it comes down to the most important adjective goes closest to the noun it’s modifying. In this case, the most important thing about the vehicle is that is belong to the military. Secondary to that, it is experimental. If it was also, say, red in color, that would go first because it is the least important detail. A red, experimental, military vehicle.
The fundamental rule is “if it’s how a native speaker would say it, it’s correct”. All other grammar rules are merely descriptions of patterns of how native speakers say it.
More to the point, in this specific case, I think that the relevant pattern is the transience vs. permanence of the adjective. That vehicle is experimental now, but it might be standard hardware in a few years. But it’ll still be military.
Since I am in one of my nitpicky moods again I would suggest that that is a poor example because in that particular case the order also prevents confusion between a simple description and a name. A McIntosh apple might be a delicious red apple, but a Red Delicious apple is a particular kind of apple (my favourite kind in fact).
I thought about this, but it seems to me that “experimental vehicle” is almost the same way. Just as “military vehicle” brings up very specific imagery like tanks and jet fighters, “experimental vehicle” brings to mind specific machines like the X-15 and DC-X. In fact, these two examples are also both military and yet the “experimental” part seems far more fundamental to them.
I suppose I have the same issue with Chronos’ mention of permanence vs. transience.
I would agree with the statement that “if a native speaker says it, then it’s right”, except that a native speaker did write the original sentence, and it’s clearly wrong :). Perhaps I can blame it on editing. That said, I think the point is that hard rules as they are usually taught are not the arbiters of how language works. I’m looking for the more general rule that presumably our brains somehow implement.
Heh–I was mentally composing a response to an earlier post, referring back to “red delicious apple” as something one would never say, but realized that it is a perfectly reasonable phrase for the reason you mention :). I should have used “fast red car” as my example.
I would tend to agree with Chronos. I think experimental goes before military because experimental is a more transient description of the vehicle. The purpose of the experimenting is to produce a vehicle which will still be military when the experimenting is done.
Another way to look at it might be grouping. Suppose you had four types of vehicles: experimental military vehicles, experimental civilian vehicles, production military vehicles, and production civilian vehicles. Now sort the vehicles into just two groups. I feel most people would place the experimental military vehicles and production military vehicles into one group and the experimental civilian vehicles and production civilian vehicles into the other group. They wouldn’t group the experimental military vehicles with the experimental civilian vehicles and the production military vehicles with the production civilian vehicles. This to me indicates that the divide between military and civilian vehicles is seen as more fundamental than the divide between experimental and production vehicles. And in speaking of the vehicle you keep the more fundamental adjective closest to the object.
And another +1 to this. There are cases where the order wll be reversed because of euphonia, because “it sounds better”: “a tall young man” will probably still be tall long after he’s not young any more, but tall-young is easier to pronounce and therefore gets better flow than young-tall.
No, I cook with Granny Smiths. I prefer eating Fujis or Crispins. As for Red Delicious apples, I guess I might choose them if I was taking a picture of an apple.
But in most contexts, in terms of what he’s doing or how others relate to him, the fact of his being young is more important than the fact of his being tall.
I would suggest that that is a poor example because in that particular case the order also prevents confusion between a simple description and a name. A McIntosh apple might be a delicious red apple, but a Red Delicious apple is a particular kind of apple (my favourite kind in fact).