Idiomatic pairs of adjectives

There are many idioms formed by two words joined by the conjunction and. You can have:

• adjective and adjective: high and dry
• noun and noun: body and soul
• verb and verb: wait and see
• adverb and adverb: here and there
• preposition and preposition (usually identical pairs): on and on.
• two words of different categories joined by "and": by and large (preposition and adjective), home and dry (noun and adjective).

Today, we are going to deal with "adjective and adjective" idioms. They are usually two adjectives with similar meanings that reinforce the idea given by each of them. As in other idioms, the order of the elements cannot be changed: You can say "alive and kicking", but "kicking and alive" is not possible.

Let's see some of them:

• Alive and kicking (also alive and well): Well and healthy, active. It is disappointing to see that racism is still alive and kicking.
• Safe and sound: unharmed and healthy after going through a difficult situation: We drove along a narrow, winding road, but we arrived home safe and sound. 
• Cut and dried: decided and determined beforehand, lacking freshness and spontaneity, decided in a way that cannot be changed: When it comes to the music industry, there is no cut and dried formula for success.

Cut and dried
Image

• Hale and hearty: healthy and strong: He didn't look as hale and hearty as his wife, but for a man in his late fifties, he looked good.
• Bright and breezy: cheerful and full of energy: Maggy is always bright and breezy in the mornings. 
• Fair and square: honestly and according to the rules: The Socialist Party won the election fair and square. In a direct way that is easy to understand: I told him fair and square to go away.
• spick and span: neat and clean: Mary's house is always spick and span. She's so houseproud!

Spik'n'span
Image

• Free and easy: relaxed: Life is never going to be as free and easy as it used to be when we were young.
• Sick and tired: annoyed or fed up with someone or something to the point of losing one's temper: I'm sick and tired of wasting my time at long, poinless meetings.
• Meek and mild: quiet, gentle, and always ready to do what other people want them to do, without expressing their own opinions. "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild" is a christian hymn. 
• Short and sweet: dealt with very quickly, to the point: We haven't got much time, so I'll keep it short and sweet.
• First and foremost: most important. First and foremost, I would like to thank you all for coming. (Sometimes we leave the most important thing till the end, in which case, we use "last but not least")
• Black and white: having no colours except black, white and shades of grey: A black and white film / photograph / television. The expression "in black ad white" means "in writing" or "in print": I never thought they'd put it in black and white on the front page.
• High and dry: stranded, in a difficult situation, without help or money: When we were about to catch the bus, the driver set off and left us high and dry.

Now you can check what you have learned by doing this exercise:

Many of these idioms can be heard in songs. Here are a few:

Alive and kicking by Simple Minds

Sick and tired by Anastacia

High and dry by The Rolling Stones or Radiohead, and also in the song "Water of love", by Dire Straights.

Safe and sound by Capital Cities or by Taylor Swift:

Do you know any other song in which any of these idioms can be heard? 

Edit: an anonymous reader suggested "That's me", by Abba, in which you can hear the idiom mild and meek.

Predicative adjectives

Most adjectives can have two positions in the sentence:

• Before the noun they qualify: a pretty woman. In this case the adjective is in attributive position.
• After a few verbs called linking verbs (be, seem, look, become...): Julia is pretty. In this case, the adjective is in predicative position.

Pretty Woman
Image

However, there are a few adjectives that can only happen in one of these positions. Today, we are going to see those adjectives that can only be predicative.

Predicative adjectives

Most of the adjectives only used in predicative position begin with the prefix a-.

(This prefix comes from the Old English "an", meaning on, which helped form adjectives and adverbs from nouns, or the prefix ge- that used to go before participles. It doesn't have anything to do with the negative prefix a-, which comes from Latin and Greek, and is thus used in words coming from these languages).

Some examples are: ablaze, afraid, aghast, ajar, alive, alike, alone, ashamed, asleep, awake, aware...

You can say He is alive, but *An alive man is not possible. However, most of these adjectives have an equivalent attributive adjective. Let's see a few:

Predicative	Attributive
afraid	frightened
aghast	terrified
ajar	slightly open / half-open
agog	eager
alight	lighted
alike	similar
alive	live / living
alone	lone /lonely /solitary
ashamed	embarrassed
asleep	sleeping
awake	waking

So, you can say: The boy is afraid,  or a frightened boy. But *An afraid boy, is not possible.

Apart from these adjectives beginning with a-, there are other predicative adjectives:

• Poorly (attributive: ailing) Mary is very poorly today.
• Well (attributive: healthy) She was well yesterday. 
• Ill (attributive: sick) when it means "unhealthy": He is ill, he is a sick man. However, ill can also be attributive when it means "bad", instead of "unhealthy": Ill fame, ill luck, or in the expression It's an ill wind that blows nobody good.
• Sorry is predicative when used for apologies: I am sorry, but when used attributively, it means "sad" or "unhappy": a sorry sight.

I'm sorry!
Image

Very is not used with some predicative adjectives. So, we say wide awake, fast asleep...

In the following exercise we can practise the use of predicative adjectives.

Compound adjectives

English is a very creative language in the sense that new words are invented every day, and one easy way to create a new term is to make compound nouns or adjectives. Thus, an animal with cold blood is a cold-blooded animal. Cold-blooded is a compound adjective made up of an adjective and a noun, to which the suffix-ed has been added. This word ending in -ed may look like a participle but in fact it is not, because in order to be a participle, the root has to be a verb, not a noun.
A few more examples:
A man with dark hair and blue eyes is a dark-haired, blue-eyed man.
A person with long legs is a long-legged person.
As you can see, all these examples are formed by adding -ed to an adjective-noun combination. But this is by no means the only one possible. Keep reading to find others.

Frogs are cold-blooded animals
Image by Drriss

A compound adjective is a combination of two or more words that works as an adjective. These words can be adjectives, nouns, adverbs or participles, and they can be hyphenated or not. A hyphen is a punctuation mark in the form of a short line (-) that is put between two words to join them.

Image

These compounds can be written as one word (waterproof), two separate words (brick red) or they can be hyphenated (snow-white). The compounds that are used more often tend to appear in one word. Those that combine occasionally but keep their individual meaning tend to use a hyphen. And those that come in two words keep their independent identity. But British and American English don't always use the hyphens in the same word combinations, so, when in doubt, check a good dictionary!

Sometimes, more than two words can be found forming a compound (up-to-date, state-of-the-art,..) These expressions are only found hyphenated when they precede the noun they qualify, but not when they follow linking verbs. Examples:
If you are a fashion lover, read these tips to stay up to date.
I like to follow the latest up-to-date trends.
His house is state of the art. It is full of the latest gadgets.
I love state-of-the-art technology.

State-of-the-art technology
Image

Let's have a look at the different combinations that we can find:
Noun + adjective
Trustworthy, blameworthy, duty-free, tax-free, seasick, watertight, waterproof, colour-blind, worldwide, knee-deep, self-conscious, and other compounds that are equivalent to the construction "as...as..." : brick red (as red as brick), stone-cold (as cold as a stone), paper-thin (as thin as paper)
Adjective+adjective

• A combination of two qualities: bitter-sweet, deaf-mute.
• A combination in which the first element takes the suffix -o: socio-economic, Anglo-Saxon, Franco-German, Anglo-American. In this case, all the combinations are hyphenated.
• A combination in which the first adjective qualifies the second adjective: dark-blue, red-hot, Roman-Catholic.

Adverb+adjective
Evergreen, oversensitive, all-American
Noun+present participle
Self-defeating, self-denying, heart-breaking, breath-taking, law-abiding, 
Noun+past participle
Self-taught, hand-made, thunderstruck, home-brewed, heart-felt, brightly-lit, open-minded, well-behaved
Adjective or adverb+present participle
Forthcoming, everlasting, neverending, easygoing, good-looking
Adjective or adverb+past participle
Far-fetched, well-meant, widespread, new-laid, long-awaited
Number+ noun
Second-hand, first-rate. Notice that adjectives using numbers, like any other adjectives, are not found in the plural. Thus, a boy who is twelve years old is a twelve-year-old boy, or a tree which measures three metres is a three-metre-tall tree. These expressions with numbers are always hyphenated.
Adjective+ noun
Apart from the common formation that we have seen at the beginning of this post, in which the noun takes the suffix -ed, there are other possibilities such as last-minute, deep-sea, ...
Noun+noun
Part-time
Verb+adjective or adverb
Feel-good, buy-now, pay-later

And remember that new combinations are always possible. You can create your own adjective!

Let's watch this video about two beautiful brown-eyed girls. Notice that the song by Van Morrison is called "Brown Eyed girl". Why doesn't it have a hyphen? Because you don't need it in titles! Enjoy!

Exercises:
Choose the correct  adjective from the ones given
Complete the sentences with a compound adjective
Choose the appropriate compound adjective
For advanced students
Match the compound adjectives with their definitions

Boring or bored? Adjectives ending in -ed or -ing

In English there is an important group of adjectives that are derived from verbs. They are formed by adding a suffix to the roots of verbs. These suffixes are -ed and -ing. For example, from the verb to relax you can have two adjectives: relaxed and relaxing.

These adjectives are, in fact, present participles (-ing) and past participles (-ed) of verbs that are used as adjectives. Have a look at these sentences:

He relaxed by the pool (past tense of relax)

As soon as he got home, he felt relaxed ( adjective)

She is relaxing in a spa. (present participle of the verb to relax)

It's quite relaxing to have a massage. (adjective)

Massage
Image: 'Rama Day Spa' 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035727839@N01/208808609

Bear in mind that verbs express action or state, whereas adjectives qualify nouns or pronouns, that is, they tell us what someone or something is like or how a person feels.

Some participles have almost entirely lost their verbal connections and are regarded primarily as adjectives. These can be modified by the adverb very: “I am very tired today”. “That's a very interesting book”. Others still retain strong verbal associations and cannot be modified by the adverb very. Some other suitable adverb must be used: “We had to leave the beach in a hurry because of the swiftly rising tide” (the very rising tide is not possible).

But we have two adjectives formed with the same root of the verb. Why? There must be a difference in meaning, otherwise the language would use just one word, not two. Adjectives ending in -ing are “active”, so as to speak: they perform the action of the verb and mean “having this effect”, whereas those ending in -ed are “passive”, that is, they receive the action and mean “affected in this way”. Compare:

“The exhibition was quite interesting”

“I was quite interested in the exhibition”

Exhibition
Image: 'La Fée Electricité' 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44921934@N00/3730244402

In the first example, we mean that the exhibition interests people. In the second sentence I feel an interest in the exhibition. In fact, both sentences give the same idea but from two different points of view: what was the exhibition like in the first sentence and how I felt about it in the second one.

Learning the difference between these two types of adjectives can be difficult for foreign speakers, especially when they are translated by the same word in their language. It's the case of bored/ boring for Spanish speakers because they both translate as “aburrido”. In order to get it right, here's a clue: if you mean that something bores you, that thing is boring and you feel bored. I hope you will never feel embarrassed like a Spanish student who went to England and when asked if he was having a good time he said “I am boring”, and the friendly English lady he was staying with kindly replied “No, you are not boring, you are just bored”.

Bored

Image: 'Bored' 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/27261720@N00/91147636

Most adjectives ending in -ed are pronounced as /d/ /t/ or /ɪd/ according to the rule that we saw in another entry in this blog, but a few of them have a special pronunciation: the last sylable is pronounced /ɪd/ instead of /d/ or /t/. These are: blessed, crooked, dogged, learned, ragged, wicked, wretched, naked, aged.

You will find a complete list of adjectives ending in -ed and -ing here.

And now a few exercises to revise what we have learnt:

Choose one of the options

Drag the adjectives into the gaps

Choose an option

This is for advanced students

Fill in the gaps

Negative prefixes before adjectives

We can form the opposite of many adjectives or give the negative meaning by adding a negative prefix. (a prefix is a syllable that goes before a word) There is no fixed rule for adding one prefix or another, so students have to get familiar with these words in order to use them correctly.

Happy and unhappy faces
Image in:

   http://www.cute-wallpaper.com/ecards/smiley-face/

There are many negative prefixes, most of which come from the classical languages Latin and Greek. The only one that is originally English is un-. Things would be easier if words of English origin took the prefix un- and those of Latin origin took other prefixes, but unfortunately this is not so. Have a look at these examples:

• Happy ---> unhappy
• Fair---> unfair
• Friendly ---> unfriendly

All these words come from Old English, but what about these...

• Important ---> unimportant
• Pleasant ---> unpleasant
• Popular ---> unpopular
• Prepared---> unprepared

These words come from Latin, and yet they take un-, and there are so many words like these that you cannot say that they are the exception to the rule. In fact, they prove that there is no such rule!

So, as I said at the beginning, the only thing a student can do is to get familiar with them and check a dictionary when in doubt, and if it is any consolation to you, even English speakers get them wrong sometimes!

These are the most common negative prefixes used with adjectives:

dis-	il-	im-	in-	ir-	un-
disrespectful	illegitimate	impossible	indecent	irrelevant	unreasonable
dissatisfied	illogical	immature	incapable	irregular	unfortunate

Other negative prefixes are:

a-	anti-	countrer-	mal-	non-
amoral	antisocial	counterproductive	malcontent	non-violent
asexual	anti-aircraft	counterfeit	malnourished	non-profit

The prefixes im- il- and ir- are in fact a variety of in-:

• im- is used before words beginning with m or p: impersonal, immortal.
• il- is used before words beginning with l: illegal.
• ir- is used with words beginning with r: irregular.

Most compounds with non- are written with a hyphen in British English, but not in American English: non-alcoholic , nonalcoholic .

Exercises:

http://www.expandyourvocabulary.com/personality2/exercise4.swf

http://inglesnanet.com/grammar/prefix.htm

http://www.englishlab.net/hp/wf_6_wb1_negative_prefixes.htm

Adverbs and adjectives

Adjectives qualify a noun while adverbs modify verbs. In fact, the word "adverb" means "next to a verb" in latin. 
Many adverbs derive from adjectives. Most of them are formed by adding the suffix -ly to the adjective. The adjectives ending in -ble just drop the final -e and add  -y, while those adjectives that end in -y drop it and add -ily. Some examples are:
quick   quickly
comfortable    comfortably
happy     happily
Exceptions:
good     well 
fast      fast
hard    hard*


*We shouldn't confuse the words hard  and hardly. They  are both adverbs but have different meanings: hard means rough or difficult, whereas hardly means barely or not much. Can you see the difference between "working hard" and "hardly working"?


Watch this presentation and do the exercises below:

Adverbs and Adjectives
View more presentations from yolyordam yolyordam.


Adverb or adjective?
Answer key to the exercises in the presentation