# Question regarding the order of adjectives in English (coordinate adjectives?) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 31, 2022, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894 "2022-07-31T23:28:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2022, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/21 "2022-08-01T14:19:40Z")
I can’t quite figure out that rule - everything I’ve seen refers to (ablaut) reduplication and defines reduplication as when a word is repeated with only a slight change or even no change at all . Examples given include exact reduplications such as _boo-boo_, rhyming duplications such as _itsy-bitsy_ , ablaut reduplications where the vowel changes such as _chit chat_ , comparative reduplication such as _redder and redder_ and contrastive reduplication , where _milk milk_ might be used to contrast with soy milk. But none of the definitions covers words that only share the initial letter and some of them say that technically, “big bad” is not a reduplication, but it conforms to another unwritten rule regarding the order of vowels (i-a-o ) which takes priority over the order of adjectives when they conflict. But the example used is invariably “big bad wolf” and some articles even point out that the vowel order rule is not used in similar phrases such as “cute little kittens” or “bad little dog”. One article pointed out that we also use “big evil grin” , so it seems to me that either “big bad” and “big evil” are set phrases or there’s an exception for the word “big” - after all, we would say “bad little puppy” or 'evil little thing" ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2022, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/22 "2022-08-01T14:58:27Z")
“Bad” in “Big Bad Wolf” is , ISTM, akin to “purpose” - it’s a moral quality in a story, not a mere judgement of opinion by the reader. The Big Bad Wolf is _inherently_ Bad, it’s his purpose in _The Terrible Grand-daughter Who Wore Red_ or _The Pigs Who Didn’t Care About Building To Code_ to _be_ “Bad”. Whereas “bad little dog” is a judgement call. ---
**Author:** ![Roger\_That](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roger_that/32/8505_2.png) [@Roger\_That](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roger_That)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2022, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/23 "2022-08-01T15:53:58Z")
Of course there are gradations of “big” in regard to weddings. No doubt about it. But do you doubt for a second if you asked 100 people if they had a big wedding to separate into two groups, that the “Yes” group would have many, many, many times more attendees on average than the “No” group? We might all define “big wedding” differently but of those 100 people I’d guess that fewer than 10 of them would have a hard time deciding whether theirs was “big” or not. And if you asked them “Am I fat?” I think the average of the “yes” group and the “no” group would be much closer. But I agree that “big fat” is used as a compound adjective rather than as two separate ones, so this may not be a useful distinction. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2022, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/24 "2022-08-01T16:12:56Z")
I recall the movie Crazy Rich Asians. My wife and I were both disappointed to find the movie was about (Crazy Rich) Asians more than Crazy (Rich Asians). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2022, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/25 "2022-08-01T16:47:27Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > But the example used is invariably “big bad wolf”… In modern usage, there’s also “big bad evil guy”, sometimes shortened to “BBEG”, or even just “the big bad”. Taken literally, “bad” and “evil” would be redundant, and the BBEG often isn’t particularly physically large. Rather, the BBEG is the boss of all of the evil guys, the one who’s setting the evil plan in motion, and who must be defeated before the evil plan is completely foiled. It seems like “big” might be directly modifying “bad”, in that it’s his badness that’s big… except it’s not unheard-of for the “Big Bad” to not actually be as evil as some of his underlings (occasionally one will even see a “Big Bad Good Guy”). ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2022, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/26 "2022-08-02T02:17:12Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > or there’s an exception for the word “big” It would not surprise me in the least if that’s the case. We need someone to analyse a large amount of text to see if “big” ever occurs anywhere other than first in a list of adjectives. I can’t think of any, except for cases where “big” has been incorporated into a compound noun. The “big bad” Chronos cites in the post above would be an example of such a compound. ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2022, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/27 "2022-08-02T02:27:17Z")
You know, it’s “big bad” but “good little”. I think there’s something else going on here. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2022, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/28 "2022-08-02T04:24:41Z")
I think a bit of what’s missed here is that some are not adjectives modifying the primary noun. “Brown leather shoes” may be brown shoes, but really the phrase refers to leather that is brown which would make brown an adjective modifying an adjective which is also able to be a noun (or is brown now an adverb?). The shoes are then leather, but of a particular type - brown. English grammar is full of amazing ambiguities. Similarly, “big fat” or “big bad” is common English usage which I assume to mean the “big” to modify the adjective “fat” or “bad” - the thing is extra big or extra fat. Or to borrow an word from someone who has a wayward words, it is “bigly bad” or “bigly fat” that is the more correct way of saying it (if there were such a word). SO “my big fat Greek wedding” could be described with not as much torture to English speaking ears as “My Greek big fat wedding”, but not by much. There are two modifiers - Greek, and “big fat”, and they are roughly interchangeable, since neither narrows the scope of the other. But I will conceded the OP’s point that there are certain orders of things that seem more pleasing to native English ears, and logicl has less to do with it, more likely common usage. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2022, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/29 "2022-08-02T12:31:09Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > I’m pretty sure that this is a rule that is picked up by osmosis and that neither native speakers nor even people who study English as a foreign language are ever taught this. I am a a (retired) teacher of the American language. I was taught tis. I taught this. Want a nice lesson plan on it? ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/30 "2022-08-02T18:49:58Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#): > > I am a a (retired) teacher of the American language. I was taught tis. I taught this. Want a nice lesson plan on it? Sure, thanks ! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2022, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/31 "2022-08-02T20:08:49Z")
Yeah, I remember it being mentioned in an ESL workbook I used while briefly teaching English abroad. But – from kindergarten through graduating college as an English major – this was never mentioned, to my knowledge. (I might expect to see it in a linguistics department). Another one that is taught in ESL that I’ve never come across in (US) English classes is 1st vs 2nd vs 3rd (and even 0th) conditionals. I had no idea of the formal naming of the various conditionals, nor how the tenses changed between them and therefore convey different meanings (I mean, I knew it intuitively from hearing and speaking the language, but never formalized.) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2022, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894/32 "2022-08-02T20:22:45Z")
> [@Roger\_That](#): > > Isn’t your example an exception to the rule? “Big” measures size, while “Fat” seems to measure opinion, no? “Fat” could be size. Or shape. Or material, if you want to be gross. Opinion is, at best, the 4th category I’d put it under. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-regarding-the-order-of-adjectives-in-english-coordinate-adjectives/968894.md?page=1)