The Elements of Eloquence: Secrets of the Perfect Turn of Phrase

by Mark Forsyth

The reason for Tolkien’s mistake, since you ask, is that adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun.

There are other rules that everybody obeys without noticing. Have you ever heard that patter-pitter of tiny feet? Or the dong-ding of a bell? Or hop-hip music? That’s because, when you repeat a word with a different vowel, the order is always I A O. Bish bash bosh.

It is the anadiplosis, the repetition of the last word of one clause as the first word of the next, that gives both lines their power, whether they’re written by a saint or uttered by a small green alien.

A Divagation Concerning Versification English verse

Interesting section about word timing... Neat!

The iambic pentameter is the Rolls-Royce of verse forms. The others are mere unicycles, tractors, quad-bikes and rickshaws. They’re fine for some particular purpose, but the iambic pentameter can do everything. It can do tragic (“No longer mourn for me when I am dead”), heroic (“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”), motivational (“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers”), pastoral (“There is a willow grows aslant a brook”), romantic (“If music be the food of love, play on”), casual (“The lady doth protest too much, methinks”), or witty:

The iambic pentameter remained the gold standard of English poetry. It’s reckoned that about three quarters of all English poetry is written in the meter.