How do you use "little" in this case?
Hi Italki,

I came across an entry and saw that a man wrote like this ''In the street number five, Mr.Temp and Mrs.Temp live with them little shy son. His name is Paul..."

A woman took a correction '''In the street number five, Mr.Temp and Mrs.Temp live with their shy little son. His name is Paul".

She also noted: ''Shy little son" - I don't think there is any hard-and-fast rule for this, but it's just convention to arrange the adjectives this way when you have "little" describing a person or animal. For example, you should also say "cute little boy" or "sweet little girl" or "mischievous little kitten".

She said that we should also say ADJ-little-NOUN, why she used "shy little son'' ?

I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you much ^^.

Henry

Question

How do you use "little" in this case?
Hi Italki,

I came across an entry and saw that a man wrote like this ''In the street number five, Mr.Temp and Mrs.Temp live with them little shy son. His name is Paul..."

A woman took a correction '''In the street number five, Mr.Temp and Mrs.Temp live with their shy little son. His name is Paul".

She also noted: ''Shy little son" - I don't think there is any hard-and-fast rule for this, but it's just convention to arrange the adjectives this way when you have "little" describing a person or animal. For example, you should also say "cute little boy" or "sweet little girl" or "mischievous little kitten".

She said that we should also say ADJ-little-NOUN, why she used "shy little son'' ?

I hope to hear from you soon. Thank you much ^^.

Henry

Answer

You can find advice on the order to put adjectives in many places: for example:-

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar/adjectives/order-adjectives

I think the general rule is that the quality that is thought to be hardest to change goes nearest the noun.

Or put another way, if could use only one adjective, then that is the one that goes closest to the noun.  The important thing to say about Paul was that he was "little", so "little" goes next to the noun.

Answer

thank you so much, i understood.

Answer

If you put "shy" in front of "little". Then could also be describing how shy the son is. The reason it still works is because you are making a summary. So a little shy boy would still be understandable but since you can call someone a little shy, it will be more clear to to say "a shy little son".  This is because you want to say that the son is little and not the shyness.

Answers · 4

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