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Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence.
The Articles — a, an, and the — are adjectives.
Before getting into other usage considerations, one general note about the use — or
over-use — of adjectives: Adjectives are frail; don't ask them to do more work than
they should. Let your broad-shouldered verbs and nouns do the hard work of description.
Be particularly cautious in your use of adjectives that don't have much to say in the first
place: interesting, beautiful, lovely, exciting. It is your job as a writer to create beauty and
excitement and interest, and when you simply insist on its presence without showing it to
your reader — well, you're convincing no one.
Consider the uses of modifiers in this adjectivally rich paragraph from Thomas
Wolfe's Look Homeward, Angel. (Charles Scribner's, 1929, p. 69.) Adjectives are
highlighted in this color;participles, verb forms acting as adjectives, are highlighted in
this blue. Some people would argue that words that are part of a name — like "East India
Tea House — are not really adjectival and that possessive nouns — father's, farmer's —
are not technically adjectives, but we've included them in our analysis of Wolfe's text.
He remembered yet the East India Tea House at the Fair, the sandalwood, the turbans,
and the robes, the cool interior and the smell of India tea; and he had felt now
the nostalgic thrill of dew-wet mornings in Spring, the cherry scent, the cool clarion earth,
the wet loaminess of the garden, the pungent breakfast smells and the floating snow of
blossoms. He knew the inchoate sharp excitement of hot dandelions in young earth; in
July, of watermelons bedded in sweet hay, inside afarmer's covered wagon; of
cantaloupe and crated peaches; and the scent of orange rind, bitter-sweet, before a fire
of coals. He knew the good male smell of hisfather's sitting-room; of
the smooth worn leather sofa, with the gaping horse-hair rent; of
the blistered varnished wood upon the hearth; of the heated calf-skinbindings; of
the flat moist plug of apple tobacco, stuck with a red flag; of wood-smoke
and burnt leaves in October; of the brown tired autumn earth; of honey-suckle at night;
of warm nasturtiums, of a clean ruddy farmer who comes weekly with printed butter,
eggs, and milk; of fat limp underdone bacon and of coffee; of a bakery-oven in the wind;
of large deep-hued stringbeans smoking-hot and seasoned well with salt and butter; of a
room of old pine boards in which books and carpets have been stored, long closed;
of Concord grapes in their long white baskets.
Position of Adjectives
Unlike Adverbs, which often seem capable of popping up almost anywhere in a
sentence, adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase
that they modify. Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they
appear in a set order according to category. (See Below.) When indefinite pronouns —
such as something, someone, anybody — are modified by an adjective, the adjective
comes after the pronoun:
And there are certain adjectives that, in combination with certain words, are always
"postpositive" (coming after the thing they modify):
The president elect, heir apparent to the Glitzy fortune, lives in New York proper.
See, also, the note on a- adjectives, below, for the position of such words as
"ablaze, aloof, aghast."
Degrees of Adjectives
Adjectives can express degrees of modification:
• Gladys is a rich woman, but Josie is richer than Gladys, and Sadie is
the richest woman in town.
Certain adjectives have irregular forms in the comparative and superlative degrees:
Grammar's Response
From The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Styleby Bryan Garner.
Copyright 1995 by Bryan A. Garner. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,
www.oup-usa.org, and used with the gracious consent of Oxford University Press.
Be careful, also, not to use more along with a comparative adjective formed with -
er nor to use most along with a superlative adjective formed with -est (e.g., do not write
that something is more heavier or most heaviest).
• He is as foolish as he is large.
• She is as bright as her mother.
And sometimes a set phrase, usually an informal noun phrase, is used for this purpose:
Occasionally, the comparative or superlative form appears with a determiner and the
thing being modified is understood:
• Of all the wines produced in Connecticut, I like this one the most.
• The quicker you finish this project, the better.
• Of the two brothers, he is by far the faster.
Authority for this section: A University Grammar of English by Randolph Quirk and Sidney Greenbaum.
Longman Group: Essex, England. 1993. Used with permission.
Taller than I / me ??
When making a comparison with "than" do we end with a subject form or object
form, "taller than I/she" or "taller than me/her." The correct response is "taller
than I/she." We are looking for the subject form: "He is taller than I am/she is
tall." (Except we leave out the verb in the second clause, "am" or "is.") Some
good writers, however, will argue that the word "than" should be allowed to
function as a preposition. If we can say "He is tall like me/her," then (if "than"
could be prepositional likelike) we should be able to say, "He is taller than
me/her." It's an interesting argument, but — for now, anyway — in formal,
academic prose, use the subject form in such comparisons.
We also want to be careful in a sentence such as "I like him better than
she/her." The "she" would mean that you like this person better than she likes
him; the "her" would mean that you like this male person better than you like that
female person. (To avoid ambiguity and the slippery use of than, we could write
"I like him better than she does" or "I like him better than I like her.")
It would be folly, of course, to run more than two or three (at the most) adjectives
together. Furthermore, when adjectives belong to the same class, they become what we
call coordinated adjectives, and you will want to put a comma between them: the
inexpensive, comfortable shoes. The rule for inserting the comma works this way: if you
could have inserted a conjunction —and or but — between the two adjectives, use a
comma. We could say these are "inexpensive but comfortable shoes," so we would use a
comma between them (when the "but" isn't there). When you have three coordinated
adjectives, separate them all with commas, but don't insert a comma between the last
adjective and the noun (in spite of the temptation to do so because you often pause there):
We took the northwest route during the spring thaw. We stayed there until the town's
annual Fall Festival of Small Appliances.
Collective Adjectives
When the definite article, the, is combined with an adjective describing a class or
group of people, the resulting phrase can act as a noun: the poor, the rich, the oppressed,
the homeless, the lonely, the unlettered, the unwashed, the gathered, the dear departed.
The difference between a Collective Noun (which is usually regarded as singular but
which can be plural in certain contexts) and a collective adjective is that the latter is
always plural and requires a plural verb:
• The rural poor have been ignored by the media.
• The rich of Connecticut are responsible.
• The elderly are beginning to demand their rights.
• The young at heart are always a joy to be around.
Adjectival Opposites
The opposite or the negative aspect of an adjective can be formed in a number of
ways. One way, of course, is to find an adjective to mean the opposite — an antonym.
The opposite ofbeautiful is ugly, the opposite of tall is short. A thesaurus can help you
find an appropriate opposite. Another way to form the opposite of an adjective is with a
number of prefixes. The opposite of fortunate is unfortunate, the opposite
of prudent is imprudent, the opposite of considerate is inconsiderate, the opposite
of honorable is dishonorable, the opposite ofalcoholic is nonalcoholic, the opposite of
being properly filed is misfiled. If you are not sure of the spelling of adjectives modified
in this way by prefixes (or which is the appropriate prefix), you will have to consult a
dictionary, as the rules for the selection of a prefix are complex and too shifty to be
trusted. The meaning itself can be tricky; for instance, flammable and inflammable mean
the same thing.
Review the section on Possessives for a distinction between possessive forms and
"adjectival labels." (Do you belong to a Writers Club or a Writers' Club?)
Adjectives that are really Participles, verb forms with -ing and -ed endings, can be
troublesome for some students. It is one thing to be a frightened child; it is an altogether
different matter to be a frightening child. Do you want to go up to your professor after
class and say that you are confused or that you are confusing? Generally, the -ed ending
means that the noun so described ("you") has a passive relationship with something —
something (the subject matter, the presentation) has bewildered you and you are
confused. The -ing ending means that the noun described has a more active role — you
are not making any sense so you are confusing (to others, including your professor).
The -ed ending modifiers are often accompanied by prepositions (these are not the
only choices):
A- Adjectives
The most common of the so-called a- adjectives are ablaze, afloat, afraid, aghast,
alert, alike, alive, alone, aloof, ashamed, asleep, averse, awake, aware. These adjectives
will primarily show up as predicate adjectives (i.e., they come after a linking verb).
Occasionally, however, you will find a- adjectives before the word they modify: the alert
patient, the aloof physician. Most of them, when found before the word they modify, are
themselves modified: the nearly awake student, the terribly alone scholar. And a-
adjectives are sometimes modified by "very much": very much afraid, very much alone,
very much ashamed, et