Adjectives are often used in groups of two or three.

• When in "list form", the last one is separated by an and. For example: She is tall, thin and beautiful.
  
  
• When a noun is at the end, the and is omitted. For example: She is a tall, thin, beautiful model.
  
  
• There are no hard and fast rules to the order that adjectives must come in. You can read many different books offering many different opinions. One common on is age + color + material + purpose + noun. However, the pattern that generally emerges is that whichever adjective is the one you'd like to emphasize or is new information, is the one that comes first. Think about the following two phrases:
  
  
  • an intelligent, young student
    
    
  • a young intelligent student
  
  One emphasizes age and the other emphasizes intelligence.

• Comparative (More): Pete is taller than John.
  
  
• Superlative (Most): Pete is the tallest boy in our class.

• Adjectives ending with a single consonant after a single or short vowel form the comparative with -er and the superlative with -est; Examples:
  
  
• Adjectives ending in one vowel followed by one consonant double the final vowel; Examples: sad, sadder, saddest
  
  
• Adjectives ending with a single consonant after a dbouel or long vowel do not double the final consonant; Examples: weak, weaker, weakest
  
  
• Two syllable and monosyllable adjectives that end in y change the y to and i and add er or est; Example: friendly, friendlier, friendliest
  
  
• Two syllable adjectives that do not end in y usually use more and most prior to the adjective; Example: modern, more modern, most modern
  
  
• Adjectives that are past particiles of verbs use more and most prior to the adjective; Example: chilled, more chilled, most chilled
  
  
• Three or more syllable adjectives use more and most prior to the adjective; Example: beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful

Unpack Your Adjectives

Music and Lyrics by George R. Newall
Performed by Blossom Dearie
Animation by Phil Kimmelman and Associates

Got home from camping last spring.
Saw people, places and things.
We barely had arrived,
Friends asked us to describe
The people, places and every last thing.
So we unpacked our adjectives.

I unpacked frustrating first.
Reached in and found the word worst.
Then I picked soggy and
Next I picked foggy and
Then I was ready to tell them my tale,
'Cause I'd unpacked my adjectives.

Adjectives are words you use to really describe things.
Handy words to carry around.
Days are sunny or they're rainy.
Boys are dumb or else they're brainy.
Adjectives can show you which way.

Adjectives are often used to help us compare things,
To say how thin, how fat, how short, how tall.
Girls who're tall get taller.
Boys who're small get smaller.
'Til one is the tallest and the other's the smallest of all.

We hiked along without care.
Then we ran into a bear!
He was a hairy bear!
He was a scary bear!
We beat a hasty retreat from his lair,
And described him with adjectives.

Turtle: Whoa! Boy, that was one big, ugly bear!

You can make even adjectives out of the other parts of speech like verbs and nouns. All you have to do is tack on an ending like -ic or -ish or -ary. For example: This boy can grow up to be a huge man, but still have a boyish face. Boy is a noun but the ending -ish makes it an adjective, boyish, that describes the huge man's face. Get it?