Grammar is linear and spoken English is abstract. Latin grammar with its hundreds of 1 + 1 = 2 rules is too concrete to adequately characterize English writing, much less speaking. “Adjectives describe nouns” is a good example of an overplayed grammar rule that simply does not ring true.

Merry, Happy, Joyous, Cheerful, Glad… are all synonyms, so they mean the same thing, and they are all adjectives, which means they describe nouns. But only one of them describes the noun Christmas or the noun Birthday. Happy Christmas and Merry Birthday do not exist in North American English, even though the grammar is perfect.

English is put together differently from Latin.

To further compound the issue, English has a habit of using the same word in many different roles. “Match” can be a noun describing something that lights a candle, a verbas instructions in a classroom exercise, or an adjective to describe another noun as in “match point” or “The couple is a good match.” In English it is the context or surrounding words that give individual words their meaning. (more…)