On 3/2/2021 8:53 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 2 Mar 2021 20:31:08 +0000 (UTC), Eli the Bearded
wrote:

In rec.woodworking, wrote:
Obviously English. Learn that and you've learned all of the others,
since English is a language stolen from a hundred others. ;-)

English usually doesn't steal grammar from other langages, just words.

Grammar too, just all of them mashed together at random.

OK, it has some special (read; weird) rules not found elsewhere, like
order of adjectives. Get them out of order and you sound like a true
moron (but no one can tell you why ;-).

To wit:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/...t-know-we-know

"Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order:
opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you
can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver
whittling knife. But if you mess with that word order in the
slightest you'll sound like a maniac. It's an odd thing that every
English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it
out."

I think you left out physical quality (after size) and have shape and
age reversed. It's not likely that you'll ever exhaust the list. ;-)

But you're right, I couldn't list them without help. Most don't even
know that there is a list but know something's very wrong when it's
violated. It's one of those things natural English speakers learn by
example from birth rather than by explicit rule but confuses the hell
out of those learning the language by rule. English is very hard to
learn by rule. Again, they're stolen from a hundred languages, OK,
with a good dose of randomness thrown in.

OR if you live in Texas..... The born and raised near and on both sides
of the Mexican/ US border speak a version of Spanish, TexMex, not the
style of Mexican food. I know many Hispanic/Mexican/Americans that
visit relatives deeper down in Mexico and can hardly understand what
they are saying.
Going to Spanish class in school the class was at least 40% Mexican
American and they had as much difficulty in the class as every one else.

I recall learning how to ask, what time is it, in Spanish. That was
funny because many of us thought the teacher was saying one of the local
radio stations call letters. KRYS




It goes on to explain the rare exception to that rule, namely ordering
vowel sounds in similar sounding words. Hence Little Red Riding Hood
(size color purpose) fits, but Big Bad Wolf (size opinion) doesn't.

Elijah
------
BBC story is by an author of a book on eloquence