Nerd question: My English brain reads “happy little accident” and “big angry intent” as the correct ordering of adjectives for both phrases. But semantically, the adjectives are actually swapped in order (big and little are not in the same position). What is going on?
I think its to do with the subject of the sentence.
The subject of sentence 1 is happy accidents, and he is describing it as a ‘happy’ accident because its turned out in a pleasant way, as opposed to something like “frustrating little accident”.
Sentence 2 the subject is angry intent, like he is behaving in a way that is focused by angry emotion, and in this case ‘big’ is the modifier that is giving you a scale of how intense the emotion is.
Note: I am in no way an english or language authority, just how i think my brain is handling the structure of those sentences and the order that feels ‘right’.
Funny, I thought the same thing!
Have you seen what he did to that poor little brush?
And then he laughed.Beat the Devil out of it!
This is a good philosophy for dealing with people and circumstances that oppress you
He’s going to beat the devil out of you.
Huh. This reminds me of that thing with English adjective order.
It’s Happy Little Accidents, but Big Angry Intent. Are Happy and Angry not in the same category of adjective?
I thought the same thing. It seems like the commonly accepted order (Opinion, Size, Age, Shape, Color, Origin, Material, and Purpose) doesn’t include emotion, so that might be what makes it ambiguous.
Or it might be the meaning behind the words - when Bob Ross says “happy little accidents”, he’s not saying the accidents are happy but that they’re a good thing, so this is more like an opinion, while “big angry intents” sounds more like the intents are themselves angry.
Hmmm… I think there’s something there in what you said… It does seem more like “he’s happy about the little accidents”, while “the angry intents are big”. Weird!
It kinda means (to me, a layman) that the accidentals are little but the angry is big
The Joy of Killing with Bob Ross.
“The rivers will run Cadmium Red with my enemies’ blood.”
And their undergarment shall be tainted Van Dyke Brown!
Now that’s what I call wet on wet application!
Well, he was a Drill Sergeant.
Today we’re going to use a lot of crimson, start with your knife edge…
The Happy Little Cloud in the background looks ready for some big angry smiting
Right there, on that one, let’s add Odin and a few screaming Valkyries riding forth from Asgard to rain wrath and ruin upon the nations of the White Christ.
the time at war might prove useful
Bob’s not so well known spinoff “The Agony of Abstract Expressionist Painting”
“Don’t make me angry. You don’t want to see me when I’m angry.” - Fred Rogers
We want happy paintings, if you want sad things… I’m about to go on a happy little spree
Aww, a couple’s costume!
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