I was reading an English children story to my niece the other day when I came across these phrases said by three different characters:
- I want a big, beautiful hat!
- I want a big, exciting computer!
- I want a big, expensive TV!
Why is the first adjective big and not the adjective expressing an evaluation or opinion? I thought adjectives expressing the speaker's opinion came first and foremost. I am also curious about the comma separating the two adjectives, how does it affect meaning?
And finally, if I were to insert red in the first example, where would it fit best and should I keep the commas?
I want a big, beautiful red hat!
I want a beautiful, big red hat!
I want a big, red, beautiful hat!
Answer
Commas between adjectives are typically used for adjectives from the same category:
That was a very expensive, boring, useless conference. (Opinion
adjectives)
?That was a very expensive boring useless conference.
Adjectives from different categories are not usually separated by commas:
She's just bought a beautiful new red car.
However, writers may separate words from different categories with commas, and reorder them, in order to give each word individually a focus that it would not have in a non-comma-separated list. This is what is happening with sentences such as:
I want a big, red, beautiful hat!
No comments:
Post a Comment