Hot answers tagged adjectives
5
The reason that some dictionaries do not contain "blacker" and "blackest" is that "black" is considered to be an absolute adjective. This is the same reason you are not supposed to say "more perfect", "more unique", "whiter", "deader", or "fuller". See, for example, this web page.
There are lots of people who do not abide by this "rule". For example, ...
5
I see only one adjective.
Melody is a noun. The adjective form would be melodious (or possibly melodic).
Sad is indeed an adjective describing love song.
Love is not an adjective. It is a noun adjunct — a noun which serves the function of an adjective in the noun phrase, love song.
The use of melody as a noun makes this sentence ungrammatical. This ...
4
Nostalgia is still the correct word, because it being related to some personal association to a historic place (even if it is false). For example, with pirates, you might see a guy with an eye-patch and a parrot and think "Oh! A pirate.". However, if someone who had never seen movies or read books with pirates with those characteristics, then they would ...
4
The answer to your question is not quite as easy as it should be.
The reason for this is that both "possible" and "probable" are also technical terms. So while some may use the words ordinarily, others may use them technically.
The ordinary meaning of the word "possible" is that which is able to occur.
The ordinary meaning of the word "probable" is that ...
3
Your grammar books are quite wrong; the above example is well attested in formal writing as well as informal usage. So is the above as a noun.
No one objects to using prepositional phrases as what used to be called predicate adjectives, and no one objects to a similar use of many bare prepositions:
Sartorius is above all that.
Such behavior is beyond ...
3
If the essence of the question is whether it is grammatical to chain three adjectives in a row, then the answer is: Yes.
There's nothing ungrammatical or illegal about using any number of adjectives consecutively. However, good writing style recommends that the number of adjectives be limited to three and to avoid using more than two where possible.
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I wouldn't be so sure that anger is a "temporary state on its own". Some people seem to be angry all the time!
I am being [adjective] can be used to mean that you are only displaying a certain behaviour for a limited period of time.
Contrary to @tchrist, that construction does not strike me as odd at all. In fact, it can convey nuances that the present ...
3
Because levity means “lightness” and ultimately derives from Latin levis meaning “light”, the best adjective that corresponds to it is probably just plain light.
A conversation full of levity would therefore be a light conversation.
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A person is rarely a cynic. Cynicism is a transient attitude which is modified in the light of changing conditions and can be just as healthy as skepticism. The implications above that one may switch from one to the other without intervening new information and consideration, is ridiculous. I had hoped that my diatribe would have made this clear.
The ...
2
In heads a prepositional phrase constituting an adverbial of location within a relative clause headed by that:
I will look totally stupid in it >>> that I will look totally stupid in _
If the relative pronoun were that instead of which, the preposition could be 'pied-piped' instead of 'stranded':
in which I will look totally stupid
But this ...
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Yes, “am being ADJECTIVE” sounds quite odd to a native speaker. It is not impossible, but it is very uncommon and seldom what you want.
You would virtually never say “I am being ready” or “I am being happy” instead of “I am ready” or “I am happy”.
If you really, really want a progressive aspect, then it works better with verbs like getting or becoming, ...
2
What dictionary are you using? With a quick online search, I see the word "blacker" in these:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blacker
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blacker
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/black (only the racial definition)
http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/black lists "blackest" in one of its senses, so ...
2
People write papers about parts of speech? Good heavens.
First, yes, be is always an auxiliary verb. Even if it's the only verb in the clause; the lexical item following be in that case is the real predicate.
(Not a "linking verb", btw; that's grade school stuff, like "5 take away 2")
And disappointed is indeed an adjective -- a predicate adjective ...
2
Unflappable describes someone who remains composed in the face of adversity or scandal, "impossible to fluster."
Stoic has the same meaning, but often implies indifference to pleasure as well as adversity.
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Yes, you can use migration as a noun adjunct here, with essentially the same meaning:
migratory: “wandering, roving”
migration: “to change position in an organism or substance”
Depending on the context, this might change the emphasis from activity to migration. If that's OK, you might consider removing activity entirely and simply writing, “the migration ...
1
If it's possible to "educate" your spell checker (that is, update its database with common spellings of technical terms), do so.
If you want to "correct" the terms that the spell-checker flags, you probably know that many programming languages do not allow hyphens within variable names, so there's nothing you can do about terms like plugin (for which ...
1
Now , for those of you that ever experienced basic programming , those terms would be very familiar , but how should I treat those terms when releasing my software ?
If the terms are within the code, then don't worry about spellcheck errors. Like you said, these are generally understood terms, and very few programmers care about dictionary levels of ...
1
As technical terms, blackest and blacker are still going strong:
Acktar Black ™– world blackest coating – now 1% reflectance from FUV to FIR
World's blackest material unveiled
Blacker Than Black:
Black is black, right? Not so, according to a team of NASA engineers now developing a blacker-than pitch material that will help scientists gather ...
1
At bottom your problem isn't too many prepositional phrases - it's too many nouns.
Nominalization has been the bane of "scientific" style since the heyday of positivism: nouns, 'things', are somehow regarded as having more 'reality' than verbs or adjectives, even when the 'things' are just syntactical transformations of the deprecated 'actions' and ...
1
In very formal traditional English, this sentence would be written:
It will be a terrible automobile, some old wreck in which I will look totally stupid.
Contemporary English disfavors using the formal prepositional phrase in which with its relative pronoun which: it replaces which with that and separates the preposition by putting it at the end of the ...
1
The state you describe is equanimity:
noun [mass noun]
calmness and composure, especially in a difficult situation:
she accepted both the good and the bad with equanimity
[ODO]
The adjective is equanimous.
adjective
calm and composed.
[ODO]
However it would not be the best choice in normal use. Google ...
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I would suggest that using "high" or "low" might in this case suggest a relative quantity, whereas "large" or "small" might be more absolute.
So four volcanoes could be regarded as a high number of volcanoes because most other countries have fewer, but to describe four as a large number of volcanoes could sound awkward because objectively the reader would ...
1
I don't think there is a regularly-used, modern English word that means "too few words to convey meaning". There is, however, one word that does mean that, albeit as a rarely-used meaning in modern use.
That word is elliptic. Elliptic, as Merriam-Webster defines it, has two principal meanings:
1: of, relating to, or shaped like an ellipse
2
a ...
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