Grammar Girl here, I'm in Yon Fog, your friendly guide to the English language.

We talk about writing, history, rules, and other cool stuff.

Today we'll talk about an order for adjectives

you probably didn't even know exists.

When to use commas between adjectives

and what's up with the Australian phrase yeah nah and it's

American cousin yeah no. Have you heard about the required order of adjectives in English?

Well, a few years ago, a paragraph from Mark Forsyth's book, The Elements of Eloquence that described this regular order of

adjectives went viral on Twitter. And the concept pops up again every year or so and blows people's minds anew. He said, quote,

you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife,

but if you mess with that word order in the slightest, you'll

sound like a maniac."

Now, I have loved more than one of Forsyth's various books.

In fact, I should have him on the show,

but he was a little, shall we say,

extravagant in his description of this particular phenomenon.

First, I'll argue that you sound a bit like a maniac

if you say it the quote unquote right way too.

I mean, who has a knife like that?

And further, if you do, who describes it in such detail?

But second, do you really sound like a maniac?

If you instead say you have a green rectangular knife,

...