#23: Unspoken Rules
We learn many spelling and grammar rules in school and promptly forget them once we’re out of the classroom and in the real world. But pretty much everyone in the English-speaking world follows certain unspoken linguistic rules without even realizing it. Matthew Anderson read about an astonishing revelation about language and had to share the book excerpt with his Twitter followers.
This book explains how each one of us follows the same sentence structure when describing something with several adjectives. Without even being aware, we all list adjectives in this order: “opinion-size-age-shape-color-origin-material-purpose Noun.” No matter what we’re describing, we somehow know that putting the adjectives in this order makes the most sense. If you switch any of them around, you will sound wildly unhinged. Give it a try! Write out a sentence and see what happens when you switch the words around.