One editor of mine changed the noun order in a sentence of my article. It seems minor, but I would like to figure out the reason. Is it just because the revision makes the sentence flow sound better? Like, we had better put a word of more vowels at the end of a sentence instead of the middle?
Below please see the change. Please kindly advise. Thanks!
Original Version:
“The path of Chinese discipline to internationalisation is heavy and long!”
Revised Version:
“The path of Chinese discipline to internationalisation is long and heavy!”
Answer
This word order is a cultural convention (not a requirement of logic). It therefore sounds more "natural" to native speakers.
There is a word order for English adjectives:
Opinion Size Age Shape Colour Material Origin Purpose
The problem: Weight does not fit in here. The principle might be the same, i.e. a convention that says that size comes before weight. I asked this here.
Too complicate things more, there is another rule that exempts the above rule but this happens quite seldom (e.g. it's Big Bad Wolf, not Bad Big Wolf). It requires the order of vowels to be ⟨i⟩, ⟨a⟩, ⟨o⟩ (or in IPA: /ɪ/, /æ/, /ɔ/. For instance:
ding, dang, dong
The first vowel in heavy, /ɛ/, is close to /æ/. So my first thought was that "long and heavy" should comply with this rule. But it does not. This might have several reasons. Firstly, it's not an instance of reduplication. Secondly, the words are separated by and.
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