Talking about squid

[ratatosk]

Poll Native English speakers only, please

[backgroundThere are linguists with very complicated theories about English adjective classes. I'm not sure what kind of empirical evidence they have, though, and I consider native speaker intuition to be definitive (where by "definitive" I mean "good enough for the Int0rnet"... I'm also assuming you can elicit what you want properly instead

Comments

[laura47]

i feel like "flying' most directly modifies giant squid so it should be last. or something.

[enf]

Agreed. Flying has to come last, like it's part of the name, like flying squirrel.

[jadine]

I had some thoughts in this direction too, but I think it really sounds better the third way.

[ratatosk]

See? This is the problem!

:)

[ratatosk]

That's exactly right in terms of meter. I was overwhelmed the first time through, and missed it. :) Of course we want a flying squid that scans, so long as we've got just one species.

[jadine]

Yeah, I totally agree. For pure adjectival meaning, I think I would go with #2, but I have to choose #3 pretty definitively because it scans better.