16 upvotes, 2 direct replies (showing 2)
View submission: What’s the weirdest “unwritten rule” everyone just follows?
mine are going to be linguistic ones, since i've exchanged these with non-native english speakers recently:
"adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion- size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So 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. It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out. "
another one i was asked to explain recently was that you can say happy or merry christmas, unless one is also passing on new years greetings and then it MUST be merry christmas/happy new year and never the inverse or both happy, and we all follow this rule without question or without ever deciding on it
Comment by Kesshin_Unmei at 03/12/2024 at 16:22 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
so you can have a great big new round orange bulgarian steel walking cane, but not a big great orange round new walking steel bulgarian cane.
Comment by LolEase86 at 07/12/2024 at 01:52 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
My trilingual husband pointed this out to me and it blew my mind. English has always been my strongest competency, it's his second/third language and his knowledge of the technical aspects of the only language I speak is far superior. Not sure what use I'll be helping the kids with their homework now!