Here are some sentences with different word order. Do you think the different word orders are correct? Is there a difference in meaning? Post your thoughts here!
Example #1
a. The long-stemmed, red roses are the loveliest.
b. The red, long stemmed roses are the loveliest.
Example #2
a. The movies at the downtown, six-screen cinema always change on Friday.
b. The movies at the six-screen, downtown cinema always change on Friday.
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4 comments:
I'm attempting to deal with Example #2:
To me (and this is just my opinion), I have to ask myself, is it a downtown cinema that happens to have six screens, OR is it a six-screen cinema that happens to be downtown? I think that the adjective closest to the noun it modifies is actually inseparable from it.
In other words, Example 2b suggests that there is only one cinema downtown (as in, it's a small town that could afford only one cinema), and it happens to have six screens.
On the other hand, 2a suggests that there is more than one cinema downtown, BUT there is only one with six screens.
In other words, I think that 2a and 2b are both correct, but they have different meanings.
Does anyone disagree? Please feel free to debate this with me!
Example #1
a. The long-stemmed, red roses are the loveliest.
b. The red, long-stemmed roses are the loveliest.
Basically, I'm with Lara.
There are a few interesting things to note here. First, the -ed on stemmed is not the past tense or past particle -ed. It is a suffix that forms adjectives. The OED says, "OE. -ede = OS. -ôdi (not represented elsewhere in Teut., though ON. had adjs. similarly f. ns., with ppl. form and i- umlaut, as eyg{edh}r eyed, hynrdr horned):{em}OTeut. type -ô{dbar}jo-, is appended to ns. in order to form adjs. connoting the possession or the presence of the attribute or thing expressed by the n. The function of the suffix is thus identical with that of the Lat. ppl. suffix -tus as used in caud{amac}tus tailed, aur{imac}tus eared, etc.; and it is possible that the Teut. -ô{dbar}jo- may originally have been f. -ô{dbar}o- (see -ED1), the suffix of pa. pples. of vbs. in -ôjan formed upon ns. In mod.Eng., and even in ME., the form affords no means of distinguishing between the genuine examples of this suffix and those ppl. adjs. in -ED1 which are ultimately f. ns. through unrecorded vbs. Examples that have come down from OE. are ringed:{em}OE. hringede, hooked:{em}OE. hócede, etc. The suffix is now added without restriction to any n. from which it is desired to form an adj. with the sense ‘possessing, provided with, characterized by’ (something); e.g. in toothed, booted, wooded, moneyed, cultured, diseased, jaundiced, etc., and in parasynthetic derivatives, as dark-eyed, seven-hilled, leather-aproned, etc. In bigoted, crabbed, dogged, the suffix has a vaguer meaning. (Groundless objections have been made to the use of such words by writers ignorant of the history of the language: see quot.) In pronunciation this suffix follows the same rules as -ED1."
Secondly, "red roses" have a strong collocation that, say "yellow roses" don't. (You can check this out on the corpus page.) As a result, The yellow, long-stemmed roses sounds less marked than The red, long-stemmed roses.
As Lara said, both (a) and (b) seem fine, it depends what distinction you're making. In general new information comes first.
#2 is a little bit different.
Example #2
a. The movies at the downtown, six-screen cinema always change on Friday.
b. The movies at the six-screen, downtown cinema always change on Friday.
In #1, both modifiers are adjectives, but in #2 I believe both are nouns functioning as a modifiers.
Still, I think both work, and again, new information comes first.
HI!
In my private opinion about word order #1, grammartically, as Iren said, a. The long-stemmed, red roses are the loveliest seems to be right one. Basicallly I also agree with her but sentence b. The red, long-stemmed roses are the loveliest also seems to be no problem. If we think long-stemmed roses as an one body of flower, red color only describes the the long stemmed roses.
In my private opinion, when we talk about word order, small place comes first compare to huge area. Therefore, sentence b. The movies at the six-screen, downtown cinema always change on Friday more appeal to me than sntence a. The movies at the downtown, six-screen cinema always change on Friday.
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