Historical old building
I do have problem with grammatical points!!
I'm studying English grammar book.which says if two or more adjectives come before a noun, the order of the adjective is: Size-Temperature-Age-colour- Nationality-Martial-Type!
For example ''Historical old building'': In this case (in my opinion) Historical can describe the Age and also the Type!?
if we assume it(Historical) be the Age in according to the book the correct order is ''Historical old building'' but if be the Type ''old historical building'' is correct!??? the same thing about ''old''(It can be the Age and also the Type)
Please help me I'm really confused :(

Question

Historical old building
I do have problem with grammatical points!!
I'm studying English grammar book.which says if two or more adjectives come before a noun, the order of the adjective is: Size-Temperature-Age-colour- Nationality-Martial-Type!
For example ''Historical old building'': In this case (in my opinion) Historical can describe the Age and also the Type!?
if we assume it(Historical) be the Age in according to the book the correct order is ''Historical old building'' but if be the Type ''old historical building'' is correct!???  the same thing about ''old''(It can be the Age and also the Type)
Please help me I'm really confused  :(

Answer

I agree with Allan: in confusing cases, both orders are fine.
 "Old historic building" gives 135,000 Google results (keep the quotation marks if you try it yourself)
"Historic old building"  gives 123,000 Google results.

So, natives use both.

HOWEVER, non-confusing cases definitely follow the rule.
"brown leather boots" gives 1,350,000 results
"leather brown boots" only gives 95 results.

So, when the categories are obvious, we definitely DO care about order of adjectives.

Answer

For these sentences you can use 'old' as either the first or second adjective.  But I think the other adjective should be 'historic' instead of 'historical'.

Answers · 3

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