His reasoning could not really be disputed, and not long afterward the adjective became a full-fledged part of speech.
Words that signify the Quality of the Thing, cannot come under the same Denomination with those that signify the Name of the Thing And seeing the Adverb, which signifies the Manner of the Verb is made a distinct Part of Speech, why should not the Adjective be so too, since it bears at least the same relation to the Noun, as that doth the Verb?
Like adverbs, they are sprinkled into sentences by writers who don't stop to think that the concept is already in the noun."Īnd thus the title of this book, a piece of advice traditionally attributed to Mark Twain.Įven the ancient Greeks seem to have been dismissive of the adjective their term for it was epitheto, meaning "something thrown on." In Latin, as previously noted, there are no adjectives, and such was the influence of that ancient language that the earlier English grammarians categorized these words as a subset of nouns. Thus Voltaire: "The adjective is the enemy of the noun." Thus William Zinsser: "Most adjectives are. That it is good to avoid them is one of the few points on which the sages of writing agree. They rank right up there with Osama bin Laden, Geraldo Rivera, and the customer-service policies of cable TV companies. Because as far as not getting respect goes, adjectives leave Rodney Dangerfield in the dust. Kicking things off with adjectives is a little like starting a kids' birthday party with the broccoli course.
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