FRENCH: La place des adjectifs

[orpheus_samhain]

I was told that some short and frequently used adjectives come before nouns, among them long. But French Wiktionary in point 2 has examples of the opposite. Une table longue. [...] Un champ long et étroit.

And why vieux is put before the noun and neuf after the noun?

Comments

[muckefuck]

I'll consult Le bon usage when I get home, but my intuition of un champ long et étroit is that two adjectives linked with et are considered a single "long adjective" for the purposes of this rule. ?(Un long champ et étroit seems awkward at best and may be completely unidiomatic. (I leave it up to native speakers to pronounce judgment.)

[orpheus_samhain]

Thank you. I suspect that with the second example it may be the case, but I'm still at a loss with the simple "une table longue" *scratches her head*

[dhampyresa]

Yeah, I wouldn't split up adjectives that are used to describe the same noun. Un long champ et étroit is difficult to parse.

[orpheus_samhain]

Thank you.

[whatifoundthere]

Reminds me of the famous, much-quoted moment from Twin Peaks, "Damn good coffee, and hot!" It sounds strange, which makes sense for Dale Cooper since he was a bit of a strange guy. But it would not sound natural in day-to-day English -- we would be more likely to say "damn good hot coffee" or "the coffee is damn good and hot."

[embryomystic]

I don't know about that. I can only speak for myself (urban eastern Ontario, living in Montréal, raised on American media), but that kind of phrasing works, though only when a particular kind of emphasis is intended. I might expect non-media characters to say 'and hot, too!' but even that isn't really necessary. In addition, 'damn good hot coffee' doesn't work for me. 'The coffee is damn good and hot' is... okay, though it still sounds a little off, like you're trying to cram too much into a sentence.

[hkitsune]

Part of it is that by doing "un long champ" it's almost like you're talking about a class of fields, i.e. those that are long. When you add "et" afterward, there is no actual A in the A et B construction.

[orpheus_samhain]

Thank you, it's very useful. I haven't thought about it that way.