Thread: Grammar teaching in schools
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Old 06-27-2013, 05:47 AM   #22
mbovenka
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ansileran View Post
In the sentence you gave, I would have said "The big ugly old French woman". It's funny because I wouldn't have made the same mistake if it had been "little" instead of "big". Can't say why, except that it would have felt wrong...
Interesting. I feel the same way: 'big ugly', but 'ugly little'. Even now, 'ugly big' sounds clumsy to me.

I wonder why that is? It can't be the influence of my native (Dutch) grammar, because that uses the same order as English (and where the equivalent 'lelijke grote' sounds perfectly fine to me).

Weird.
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