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I’m a little confused on cumulative adjectives. Everywhere I look, it says that you cannot put “and” between cumulative adjectives and the order cannot be reversed.

To me, it seems like you can put "and" between some cumulative adjectives.

The man is smart and Jewish.

Would this be considered wrong? It doesn’t sound bad to me for some reason.

Also, I understand that cumulative adjectives need to be placed in a certain order, but does the meaning actually change when you reverse the order?

I just want to know whether or not I can write a sentence like the one above and what changing the order of cumulative adjectives does to the meaning.

Two huge American footballers saved the woman.
American huge two footballers saved the woman.

I know this second sentence is incorrect and even sounds incorrect, but is the meaning really different from the first sentence? Isn’t the meaning in both sentences two footballers who are huge and American saved the woman?

Is there any other type of meaning that could be interpreted in the incorrect example I gave?

Laurel
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John
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    What do you mean by "cumulative adjective"? – alphabet Jul 26 '23 at 19:58
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    Changing the order doesn't generally affect the meaning. However, sometimes adjectives also function as adverbs. If you swap the order, it may make it seem like the first adjective is modifying the second one, rather than both describing the noun. – Barmar Jul 26 '23 at 20:37
  • American huge two footballers saved the woman, sounds absolutely awful, like you don't have any idea of how to speak English. On the other hand, smart and Jewish sounds reasonably coherent, although people say smart Jewish much more often. I think the difference is that putting an and between smart and Jewish is something you might do to emphasis the word Jewish. – Peter Shor Jul 26 '23 at 20:58
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    The prohibitions you cite for order and use of conjunctions are relevant to noun phrases, such as "smart and Jewish man" or "Jewish smart man". Your example is not a noun phrase. – MetaEd Jul 26 '23 at 21:12
  • It's unthinkable not to put the number first. – Kate Bunting Jul 27 '23 at 07:56
  • Everywhere I look, it says that you cannot put “and” between cumulative adjectives and the order cannot be reversed. where does this say this, and what exactly does it say? I don't think anyone would claim it's ungrammatical to say "I like my coffee strong and black." – Stuart F Jul 27 '23 at 13:50
  • The definition of 'cumulative' I subscribe to means that if adjectives A and B are cumulative, 'an A B N' means N is A-type B'. 'A bright yellow car'. See Nordquist. The car is yellow, bright yellow. Coordinate adjectives, on the other hand, are where 'an A B N' means N is not only A but also B. 'A big round lump of dough'. The lump is both big and round ... not 'big round'. Note that the comma is not always necessary between coordinate adjectives (though is incorrect between cumulative ones). //// So, using ... – Edwin Ashworth Jul 27 '23 at 14:10
  • this definition, 'smart' and 'Jewish' are coordinate adjectives. With cumulative adjectives as defined by Nordquist and others, 'yellow bright' makes no sense and 'bright and yellow', while possible, forces a coordinate usage (the car is both bright and yellow'). Perhaps 'the car is electric blue' is a more convincing example. – Edwin Ashworth Jul 27 '23 at 14:13

4 Answers4

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In my meanderings on the internet, I came across a chart that illustrated the "proper" order of cumulative adjectives describing a noun. Here it is:

ADJECTIVAL ORDER BEFORE NOUNS

  Opinion:         A lovely

Size:            little


Age:             old


Shape:           rectangular


Color:           green


Origin:          French


Material:        silver


Purpose:         whittling


        KNIFE

There is a certain "rightness" about the adjectival order of the statement about a particular knife. I am not saying that reordering some of the adjectives is impossible, grammatically, but the order as laid out in the chart makes sense. To wit,

I have in my possession a lovely, little, old, rectangular, green, French, siver, whittling knife.

You can find a similar chart here.

As for the use of the conjunction and in a list of cumulative adjectives, you can have either no ands or a multiplicity of ands. The former is called asyndeton, and the latter polysyndeton.

I have found Robert Harris's A Handbook of Rhetorical Devices very helpful in navigating a plethora of rhetorical devices. A partial list, with definitions and examples, can be found here.

An example of polysyndeton:

I have in my possession a lovely and little and old and rectangular and green and French and silver whittling knife.

Or,

The knife I have in my possession is truly lovely, little, old, rectangular, green, French, silver--very useful for whittling.

rhetorician
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  • You should have meandered on over to ELU. Anyway, the OPs question was about 'and', and not about what the order should be. – Mitch Jul 26 '23 at 20:47
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    @Mitch: Thanks for your input and for your ELU link. What I left out of my answer is a brief explanation of the rhetorical device called polysyndeton: the use of a conjunction (such as "and") between each word, phrase, or clause, and is thus structurally the opposite of asyndeton, the device in which conjunctions are omitted where there would normally be. As for "what the order should be," think of my answer as a bonus--no charge to the OP. Don – rhetorician Jul 26 '23 at 23:21
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  1. Two huge American footballers saved the woman.

In the above sentence, the word "two" is not an adjective but a determiner. As such, you can't sensibly put it after the adjectives; this doesn't really make any sense:

  1. * American huge two footballers saved the woman.

But what if you just rearrange the adjectives?

  1. Two American huge footballers saved the woman.

Sentences like (3) sound quite bad, since they violate the normal rules of adjective order. Whether they are "technically correct" and "technically mean the same thing" is a matter of opinion.

Regarding "the man is smart and Jewish": that sentence is, of course, correct; I'm not quite sure what definition of "cumulative adjectives" you're using, but the rule you mention likely doesn't apply to that case.

alphabet
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I’m a little confused on cumulative adjectives. Everywhere I look, it says that you cannot put “and” between cumulative adjectives and the order cannot be reversed.

I cannot see that this is correct. Please provide examples of this claim.

To me, it seems like you can put "and" between some cumulative adjectives. E.g. The man is smart and Jewish.

The man is Jewish and smart also works: The first element draws more emphasis with the second element being, more or less, an aside.

Also, I understand that cumulative adjectives need to be placed in a certain order,

This is a separate question and cannot be answered in this post. Before you ask it, you might like to consider that numbers are not classed as adjectives but quantifiers, which have a function similar to – but not the same as - determiners.

Greybeard
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OP asks

"Is there any other type of meaning that could be interpreted in the incorrect example I gave?"

American huge two footballers saved the woman.

With punctuation to separate "American huge" from "two footballers", and even then only if American hugeness were something, such that the phrase would be analogous to "Faberge ornate":

Faberge ornate, two chandeliers graced the real estate mogul's palatial bathroom.

American huge, two footballers saved the woman.

But when there is a noun-phrase with a cardinal number, the cardinal number is like a determiner and comes first.

TimR
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