Postpositive Adjectives

qroqqa Elect and designate. There are also a couple (laureate and consort) that are historically of this type but which today are nouns. Jul 21, 2009

reesetee You're right, adoarns--realized that after I'd posted. I think my head was loosely attached that day. Dec 18, 2007

adoarns reesetee: the construction you propose doesn't involve post-positive adjectives per se, but rather some syntactic ellipsis: "the best gift possible" → "the best gift that is possible," &c.

And yes, the title has been changed to match standard orthography :-). Dec 18, 2007

seanahan Uh, Scotch is Scottish Whisky, which they just call Whisky when you're in Scotland. There is also Whiskey, which is typically Irish, although many places make it now. Dec 11, 2007

reesetee Great list, adoarns! I'd suggest "possible," "imaginable," and "available" (as in "the best gift possible," "worst house imaginable," "quickest route available")--unless you're restricting the list to words that can only be used postpositively.

Not to be nitpicky, but shouldn't it be "postpositive"? Dec 10, 2007

sionnach Cool list. Why do I feel like I need a shot of whiskey?

(And why can I shamefully never remember which is Irish and which is Scotch, without looking it up every single time?)

One might say that adoarns is a listmaker extraordinaire.

Many of the heraldry adjectives (rampant, cabossed, sinister and their many cousins) seem to belong to this category. Dec 10, 2007

chained_bear I always liked the synonymic "since time out of mind" instead of immemorial. Cool list!

Edit: I thought it was spelled "amok," not amuk...? Dec 10, 2007

adoarns Bilby's right; moved to new list on non-"ly" adverbs. Dec 10, 2007

bilby Amuk's originally a verb and functions as an adverb in English. But I like the concept too, a worthy way to trip the list fantastic. Dec 10, 2007

rolig Now here's a list we've needed from time immemorial! Dec 10, 2007