ADJECTIVES AS EPITHET: DESCRIPTIVE AND ATTITUDINAL USES
As a descriptor the adjective is used to ascribe a quality (big, old, red, etc.) to the referent. This may be an objective quality (e.g. a round table, a blue truck, old magazines) while others are subjective and represent the speaker’s or writer’s attitude towards the referent (good, nice, lovely, bad, stupid, horrible, etc.).
The subjective–objective distinction is not as clear as we might think, however. The act of appreciation is bound to be subjective, because the quality is inevitably presented through the eyes of the speaker, and yet the appreciation is objectivized because it is related to some cultural norm. Some ‘objective’ qualities are culture specific. What counts as a tall man or a narrow street in one culture may not appear to be so to members of another.
The attitudinal adjective expresses the speaker’s or writer’s subjective evaluation of the referent. There are two broad kinds of evaluation:
appreciative: good, wonderful, heavenly (a good film, an intelligent remark)
pejorative: bad, idiotic, monstrous, appalling (a horrible film, a foolish remark)
Certain adjectives can be used both to describe objectively and to express attitude:
Descriptive Attitudinal
a poor part of the city Poor you! Poor little boy!
a huge piece of machinery The show was a huge success.
Attitudinal adjectives are usually placed before descriptive ones: a marvellous sunny day; a sickly greenish yellow. They also tend to be preceded or followed by others which express similar or related meanings and so reinforce or intensify the attitude or emotion in question:
a lumbering great lorry a whopping big lie
that splendid, delicious meal a sweet little girl
The superlative preceded by the with attitudinal adjectives simply intensifies the effect but does not define. Compare:
We saw the sweetest little girl/the most horrible film (attitudinal) with we saw the poorest part of the city (objective and defining).
Multiple descriptors
Sequences of two epithets (mainly adjectives and participles) are found in many types of speech and writing. Strings of three, four or five adjectives can have a rather marked effect. They are common in certain genres, such as advertisements, especially personal classified ads, as the second and fourth below [square brackets enclose other elements]:
Two items: long, winding roads; hard, stale cheese
Three items: exotic, exciting, adventure-loving woman [seeks professional
man, 38+, to live life to the max with]
Four items: [what an] absurd, cruel, strange, mad thing [to do]
Five items: educated, kind, slightly shy, wealthy, good-looking male, [45, seeks
partner with a view to marriage]
