What is adjectives of unequal rank?

Question

any one know?

yeah, me either. I have an exam in 30 minutes and I have to know what that is.

Answer 1

Did you try typing "adjectives of unequal rank" in the search bar? I got this website: http://atlas.kennesaw.edu/~fbrame/

The topic is usage of commas.

"1) Between adjectives of equal rank

Adjectives of equal rank in a sentence need to be separated by commas. There are two ways to determine whether two or more adjectives are of equal rank. First, if the word "and" can be placed between the adjectives without changing the meaning of the sentence, then the adjectives are of equal rank. Second, if the order of the adjectives can be changed, then they are equal. Study the following examples. Then try both methods for deciding whether the adjectives are of equal rank:

You have made a simple, polite request.

Disorganized, illogical, messy papers must be rewritten.

If you tried both methods on these examples, you learned that the adjectives are of equal rank. Therefore, commas are needed to separate them. However, in other sentences, placing an "and" between the adjectives or changing their order would alter the meaning of the sentence. Do not use commas to separate adjectives that must stay in a specific order. Here are two examples of adjectives of unequal rank:

A few hardy plants were unaffected by the severe frost.

Several shiny spoons were placed to the right of each knife.

This is me talking now...in other words, in the first sentence the request was simple and the request was polite. In the second sentence, the subject is papers that are messy, and papers that are disorganized, and papers that are illogical. Each of those adjectives stand alone...you can have a simple request and you can have a polite request. They're independent descriptive words."

In the other two sentences you wouldn't say "few plants" and "hardy plants". Few is actually a modifier for "hardy" rather than for "plants."

Does this help at all? Equal adjectives can stand alone without changing the meaning. Unequal adjectives work together. Dropping one changes the meaning.

Answer 2

Are you sure? I've never heard of such a thing.