t is a lovely warm August day outside, and I am wearing a green loose top. Doesthe second part of that sentence sound strange to you? Perhaps you think I should have written loose green top. ou!re not wrong "though not entirely right, because descriptivist linguistics#$ An intuitive code governs the way %nglish speakers order ad&ectives. 'he rules come so naturally to us that we rarely learn a(out them in school, (ut over the past few decades language nerdshave (een monitoring modi)ers, grouping them into categories, and straining to)nd logic in how people instinctively rank those categories.*A' +A,D-A.Katy Waldman is Slates words correspondent. If you!re someone whose re/e0es scatter the moment you try to lift the veil on your unconscious, this fascinating little1known )eld "little1known fascinating )eld?# will drive you nuts. 2n the other hand, thinking a(out how ad&ectives work may (ounce you to an epistemological 3en state, wherein you can contemplate amid /utes what it means to partake of 4edness and whether former child actress means something di5erent from child former actress. Ad&ectives are where the elves of language (oth cheat and illumine reality.-ay(e I am over6ualifying this article a(out 6uali)ers "or is that the point?#.ADVERTISING ,inguists have (roken the ad&ectival landmass into several regions. 'hey are$ general opinion or 6uality "e06uisite, terri(le#, speci)c opinion or 6uality "friendly, dusty#, si7e, shape, age, color, origin, and material. 8enerally, modi)ers from the same region can (e strung together in any order. 'homas +olfe, writing in Look Homeward, Angel of blistered varnished wood andfat limp underdone (acon, could also have said varnished (listered wood or limp fat underdone (acon. "All )ve e0amples count as speci)c opinion words.# ,ikewise, if the woman in The Idea of Order at Key West had walked along the tragic1gestured, ever1hooded sea, instead of the ever1hooded, tragic1gestured sea, pro(a(ly no one would have sent the grammar cops after +allace 9tevens.2n his blog, the linguist .eal +hitman calls ad&ectives from the same semantic region:the ones where swapping their placement in a sentence neither sounds strange nor scram(les the meaning:correlative. ;orrelative ad&ectives often, though not always, announce themselves through commas, and they are good at modifying nouns without talking much to each other, like e0es at a mutual friend!s wedding. ";ommas themselves are a more complicated matter, says John T. Beavers, a professor of linguistics at the or e0ample, consider the subset of adectives calledoperators, which often take part in cumulative constructions. 9uch terms:former, alleged, fake:fundamentally change the meaning of whatever follows. "An alleged thief may not (e a thief at all.# 'herefore, when dealing with operators, the precise idea you want to e0press determines the order of ad&ectives, and a furniture dealer is not at li(erty to oscillate (etween fake -alaysian ivory:a material mas6uerading as -alaysian ivory:and -alaysian fake ivory:a not1ivory material from -alaysia. ">or more on operator ad&ectives, also known as non1intersective ad&ectives, and their role in possi(le ad&ective ordering, I mean possi(le role in ad&ective ordering, check outAle0andra 'eodorescu!s !""# paper for the ?@th +est ;oast ;onference on >ormal ,inguistics.#=ut what a(out modi)ers that sound good in one order and (ad in another, evenif they convey the same meaning (oth ways? 'hough red (ig (arns and (ig red (arns are semantically identical, the second kind pleases our ears more. 'hese tricky situations:neither pure correlation nor accumulation:generally occur when you cross the (order (etween ad&ectival regions, such as si7e and color. +hen that happens, an invisi(le code snaps into place, and the eight categories shimmy into one magistral conga line$ general opinion then speci)c opinion then si7e then shape thenage then color then provenance then material.All of which can get really confusing. >or one thing, it!s hard to remem(er. "8999A;P- isn!t that sticky of an acronym.# Plus, the (oundary (etween a general and a speci)c opinion seems thin, with words like beautiful or sweet evoking (oth discrete, somewhat measura(le 6ualities and ne(ulous curtains of approval. A few linguists also contest the placing of shape before age, or si$e after opinion. "9ure, mean little terrier works (etter than little mean terrier, (ut doesn!t a large comforta(le armchair soundnicer than its inverse? And what a(out the trump card suggested to me (y the son of one Slate colleague$ =I8 9'I.* >A4'?# 9till, corpora studies con)rm that 8999A;P- prevails in most instances of written %nglish. In ?AAB, 9tephanie +ul5 used a computer program to comb through thousands of te%ts:she found that CD percent of ad&ective strings followed the rule. -ore minutely, when ;arnegie -ellon!s %nrica 4osato searched the &orpus of &ontemporary 'merican (nglish for occurrences of (ig red EnounF versus red (ig EnounF, she turned up BD? instances of (ig red to 7ero of red (ig Is there some hidden logic underpinning this arrangement, or is it ar(itrary? 9ince 8999A;P- more or less applies to languages around the world, manylinguists think we want ripe to precede yellow for a reason. It!s possi(le that these elements of universal grammar clarify our thought in some way, says Barbara )artee, a professor emeritus of linguistics and philosophy at the