Adjectives describe nouns by answering one of
these three questions: What kind is it? How many are there? Which one
is it? An adjective can be a single word, a phrase,
or a clause. Check out these examples:
What kind is it?
Dan decided that the fuzzy
green bread would make an unappetizing
sandwich.
What kind of bread? Fuzzy and green! What kind
of sandwich? Unappetizing!
A friend with a fat wallet
will never want for weekend shopping partners.
What kind of friend? One with money to spend!
A towel that is still warm
from the dryer is more comforting than a hot fudge sundae.
What kind of towel? One right out of the dryer.
How many are there?
Seven hungry space
aliens slithered into the diner and ordered two dozen vanilla milkshakes.
How many hungry space aliens? Seven!
The students, five freshmen
and six sophomores, braved Dr. Ribley's killer calculus exam.
How many students? Eleven!
The disorganized pile of books,
which contained seventeen overdue volumes from
the library and five unread class texts, blocked the doorway
in Eli's dorm room.
How many books? Twenty-two!
Which one is it?
The most unhealthy
item from the cafeteria is the steak sub, which will slime your hands
with grease.
Which item from the cafeteria? Certainly not the one that
will lower your cholesterol!
The cockroach eyeing your
cookie has started to crawl this way.
Which cockroach? Not the one crawling up your leg but the one
who wants your cookie!
The students who neglected
to prepare for Mrs. Mauzy's English class hide in the cafeteria
rather than risk their instructor's wrath.
Which students? Not the good students but the lazy slackers.
To describe a noun fully, you might need to use
two or more adjectives. Sometimes a series of adjectives requires commas,
but sometimes it doesn't. What makes the difference?
If the adjectives are coordinate, you must use commas between
them. If, on the other hand, the adjectives are noncoordinate,
no commas are necessary. How do you tell the difference?
Coordinate adjectives can pass one of two tests. When you reorder the
series or when you insert and between them,
they still make sense. Look at the following example:
The tall, creamy, delicious
milkshake melted on the counter while the inattentive waiter flirted
with the pretty cashier.
Now read this revision:
The delicious, tall, creamy
milkshake melted on the counter while the inattentive waiter flirted
with the pretty cashier.
The series of adjectives still makes sense even though the order has
changed. And if you insert and between the
adjectives, you still have a logical sentence:
The tall and creamy and
delicious milkshake melted on the counter while the inattentive
waiter flirted with the pretty cashier.
Noncoordinate adjectives do not make sense when you reorder
the series or when you insert and between
them. Check out this example:
Jeanne's two fat Siamese
cats hog the electric blanket on cold winter evenings.
If you switch the order of the adjectives, the sentence becomes gibberish:
Fat Siamese two Jeanne's
cats hog the electric blanket on cold winter evenings.
Logic will also evaporate if you insert and
between the adjectives.
Jeanne's and two and fat
and Siamese cats hog the electric blanket on cold winter evenings.
To make comparisons, you will often need comparative or superlative adjectives.
You use comparative adjectives if you are discussing two people,
places, or things. You use superlative adjectives if you have three
or more people, places, or things. Look at these two examples:
Stevie, a suck up who sits in the front row, has
a thicker notebook than Nina, who never
comes to class.
The thinnest notebook
belongs to Mike, a computer geek who scans all notes and handouts and
saves them on the hard drive of his laptop.
You can form comparative adjectives two ways. You can add
er to the end of the adjective, or you can
use more or less
before it. Do not, however, do both! You violate the rules of grammar
if you claim that you are more taller,
more smarter, or
less faster than your older brother Fred.
One-syllable words generally take er
at the end, as in these examples:
Because Fuzz is a smaller
cat than Buster, she loses the fights for tuna fish.
For dinner, we ordered a
bigger pizza than usual so that we would have cold leftovers
for breakfast.
Two-syllable words vary. Check out these examples:
Kelly is lazier than
an old dog; he is perfectly happy spending an entire Saturday on the
couch, watching old movies and napping.
The new suit makes Marvin
more handsome than a movie star.
Use more or
less before adjectives with three or more syllables:
Movies on our new flat-screen television are, thankfully,
less colorful; we no longer have to
tolerate the electric greens and nuclear pinks of the old unit.
Heather is more compassionate
than anyone I know; she watches where she steps to avoid squashing a
poor bug by accident.
You can form superlative adjectives two ways as well. You can add
est to the end of the adjective, or you
can use most or
least before it. Do not, however, do both! You violate another
grammatical rule if you claim that you are the
most brightest, most happiest, or
least angriest member of your family.
One-syllable words generally take est
at the end, as in these examples:
These are the tartest
lemon-roasted squid tentacles that I have ever eaten!
Nigel, the tallest
member of the class, has to sit in the front row because he has bad
eyes; the rest of us crane around him for a glimpse of the board.
Two-syllable words vary. Check out these examples:
Because Hector refuses to read directions, he made
the crispiest mashed potatoes ever in
the history of instant food.
Because Isaac has a crush on Ms. Orsini, his English
teacher, he believes that she is the most gorgeous
creature to walk the planet.
Use most or
least before adjectives with three or more syllables:
The most frustrating
experience of Desiree's day was arriving home to discover that the onion
rings were missing from her drive-thru order.
The least believable
detail of the story was that the space aliens had offered Eli a slice
of pepperoni pizza before his release.
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