Is there a rule for the order in which adjectives are strung together?

I don’t believe there are any grammatical rules… I just think it’s most common for the adjective you want to emphasize the most strongly to be placed first. “Warm, cheerful fire” sounds better than “Cheerful, warm fire” because we usually associate warmth with fires more than we do cheer.

From my English Lit days, I remember the professor telling us to place adjectives from the least impact to the most impact. For example, “He was the most mannerless, rude, and horrible person I had ever met.” It builds strength within your sentence and adds the emotional force or color that adjectives are supposed to give to a sentence.

Here is the famous quote from Thomas Hobbes. Does the order of the adjectives make a difference? Are they strung together in a metrical way? Would the phrase be as powerful if the order were changed?

“and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

and the life of man, poor, solitary, nasty, short and brutish.

brutish, nasty, solitary, short and poor.

Is it correct to say that there are 5! ways of writing this?

I believe Strunk and White say to go shortest to longest (although maybe that’s a different grammar books I have around). Either way, it’s more personal preference than a hard and fast rule.

waving for attention!!! Yep, from a grammar teacher, there IS a Royal Order of Adjectives. Unfortunately, you have to turn your screen (or head) sideways to read the grid.

@linguaphile Or just save to desktop and have whatever picture viewing program you use rotate it.

@MyNewtBoobs I just print it out and let my students rotate their papers :D

Yes, but eventually you will encounter some borderline cases where editors use their intuition instead of any rules.