{"id":5070,"date":"2009-07-11T17:58:50","date_gmt":"2009-07-11T21:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=5070"},"modified":"2009-07-11T17:58:50","modified_gmt":"2009-07-11T21:58:50","slug":"the-mystery-of-misplaceable-modifiers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/07\/the-mystery-of-misplaceable-modifiers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mystery of Misplaceable Modifiers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"According to numerous sources, J.R.R. Tolkien offered this memory of his first story — not the plot, not (really) the characters, not the setting, but the language<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I first tried to write a story when I was about seven. It was about a dragon. I remember nothing about it except a philological fact. My mother said nothing about the dragon, but pointed out that one could not say “a green great dragon,” but had to say “a great green dragon.” I wondered why, and still do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I wonder that kind of stuff all the time. Sometimes you can sort of make sense of the “rule”; for instance, in an animal breed or species name which includes a modifier, you can’t reasonably separate the modifier from the noun. A friendly wire-haired terrier<\/span><\/em> works. A wire-haired<\/span> friendly terrier<\/span><\/em> doesn’t — even though it imparts exactly the same information.<\/p>\n

Other times, maybe, something just “sounds right” one way but not another. It was the longest, most difficult journey I ever took<\/em>: yeah, that’s all right. It was the most difficult, longest journey I ever took<\/em>: if I wrote that sentence, I’d immediately want to revise it.<\/p>\n

Even when the two adjectives are of similar lengths and\/or sounds, one alternative chimes and the other thuds. A cold, clear morning<\/em>: ding! A clear, cold morning<\/em>: whoomp!<\/p>\n

I can’t believe I have much of anything in common with Tolkien — and nothing at all uniquely<\/em> in common. So: What’s up with this? Any theories?<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

P.S. This sort of thing must drive copy editors — and ESL teachers — crazy<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to numerous sources, J.R.R. Tolkien offered this memory of his first story — not the plot, not (really) the characters, not the setting, but the language: I first tried to write a story when I was about seven. It was about a dragon. I remember nothing about it except a philological fact. My mother […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,5,50,372],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5070","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-06_writing","8":"category-language-writing_cat","9":"category-style-and-craft","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-1jM","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5070"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5075,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5070\/revisions\/5075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}