In Reference to...OSASCOMP: Opinion, Size, Age, Shape, Color, Origin, Material, and Purpose

Introduction

POP QUIZ: What sounds more natural?

a beautiful old wooden box OR a wooden beautiful old box

Keep going: Which of the following sound more natural?

1. an old, little lovely cottage OR a lovely, little old cottage

2. a large, red Canadian truck OR a red, large Canadian truck

3. a silver elegant serving spoon OR an elegant silver serving spoon

I know you hear it in your head. Something is off about "a wooden beautiful old box," "a lovely little old cottage," "a red, large Canadian truck," and "a silver elegant serving spoon."

But why?

Reader, I bring you: OSASCOMP (Gesundheit)

Ah yes, OSASCOMP, an acronym given to the conventional order of adjectives in English and note that many people who follow the rule every day have never heard of. Which is why I find it so fascinating. It's not especially cool because it exists, it's especially cool because most people know it without realizing that they know it.

And I bet Dollars to Donuts that you know it, too.

Table of the Contents

Introduction

Section 1: What Is OSASCOMP?

Section 2: Explicit Knowledge vs Tacit Knowledge

Section 3: More Than Just Grammar

Section 4: The Fiction Writer's Version of OSASCOMP

Conclusion

Section 1: What Is OSASCOMP?

In English, multiple adjectives preceding a noun follow a strict, often subconscious order: Opinion, Size, Age, Shape, Color, Origin, Material, and Purpose

1. Opinion: Lovely, beautiful, strange, awful, delicious

2. Size: Big, small, tall, tiny, huge

3. Age: Old, new, young, ancient, antique

4. Shape: Round, square, long, flat

5. Color: Red, blue, greenish, yellow

6. Origin: French, American, solar, lunar

7. Material: Cotton, wooden, silk, metal

8. Purpose/Qualifier: Sleeping (bag), frying (pan), walking (stick) 

Key Rules and Usage

• Determiners first: Articles (a, an, the), possessives (my, your), and demonstratives (this, that) come before all descriptive adjectives.

• Subjective to Objective: Subjective opinions come first, while factual, essential, or permanent characteristics (like material or purpose) stay closest to the noun.

• Commas and "And": When adjectives are from different categories, you usually do not need commas (e.g., a big red ball). If they are from the same category (coordinate adjectives), use a comma or "and" (e.g., a long, thin, narrow road).

• Purpose Exception: Purpose adjectives often act as part of a compound noun (e.g., tennis racket, sleeping bag) and rarely move

It helps to think of the order as moving from the most subjective description to the most objective description:

What you think → How big it is → How old it is → What it looks like → Where it's from → What it's made of → What it's for

Imagine you're introducing an object to someone. You start with your impression of it ("beautiful"), then describe its physical qualities, then where it came from, then what it's made of, and finally what it does. English speakers naturally move from opinion to purpose.

✨ Some Examples for You ✨

1. A beautiful (opinion) small (size) old (age) round (shape) blue (color) French (origin) wooden (material) jewelry (purpose) box.

2. An ugly (opinion) large (size) new (age) square (shape) white (color) American (origin) plastic (material) storage container.

3. A charming (opinion) tiny (size) ancient (age) narrow (shape) green (color) Irish (origin) stone (material) cottage.

4. An elegant (opinion) long (size) modern (age) rectangular (shape) black (color) Italian (origin) leather (material) dining table.

5. A wonderful (opinion) huge (size) young (age) slender (shape) brown (color) Canadian (origin) wool (material) hunting dog.

Few people (researching author not included) consciously think through this sequence before speaking or writing. This order comes from instinct developed through years of exposure to the language. You know more than you think you do!

And, if you're a fan of acrostics (where the first letter of each line (or paragraph) spells out a hidden word, name, or phrase when read vertically), I have a fun one for you:

Old Spiders Always Spin Colorful Orange Mittens Perfectly

Just imagine lil' geriatric arachnids spinning together orange mittens for the

8,000 lil' pedipalps of their 4,000 grandchildren.

Section 2: Explicit Knowledge vs Tacit Knowledge

Most of us think of knowledge as something we can explain. We know the capital of a state. We know how many days are in a year. We know the definition of a word.

This is explicit knowledge: information that can be easily articulated, recorded, and shared. But much of what we know doesn't work that way.

Linguists, psychologists, and educators often refer to this other type of knowledge as tacit knowledge: knowledge gained through experience rather than formal instruction.

Children are rarely taught OSASCOMP. Instead, they absorb it through thousands of conversations, books, television shows, classroom discussions, and everyday interactions. Over time, patterns eventually stop feeling like patterns and just become the default way things are done.

OSASCOMP reminds us that, from the outside, expertise often looks like instinct. What feels automatic is frequently the result of years of accumulated experience operating just below conscious awareness.

Much of what we know operates below the level of conscious awareness:

• We recognize when someone interrupts a conversation at the wrong moment.

• We know when a joke has gone too far.

• We can often identify a familiar face from across a crowded room before we've consciously registered who we're looking at.

• We can tell when a sentence sounds natural long before we could explain the grammatical rules behind it.

We don't consciously sort adjectives into categories before speaking. We don't pause to consider whether "wooden" should come before "beautiful." We simply know. It's like Neature Walk's now famous "you can tell [it's an aspen] by the way that it is."

After being exposed to an experience enough just below conscious awareness, you can just tell. OSASCOMP shows us what tacit knowledge looks like inside of language. But the same mechanism doesn’t stop at grammar—it shapes entire systems of behavior.

Section 3: More Than Just Grammar

OSASCOMP is useful on its own as a grammar pattern, but its real value shows up when you step back from language entirely. The same invisible pattern that governs adjective order governs far larger systems: professions, institutions, and cultures. We are constantly absorbing structure without being explicitly taught the structure itself. 

We learn social expectations without ever being handed a rulebook for them. We learn workplace norms without anyone formally outlining them. We absorb cultural customs, professional habits, and unspoken standards simply by participating in the environments where they exist.

And because these patterns become automatic, they also become difficult to describe.

This is why experienced practitioners in any field often sound vague when asked to explain what they do. Not because the knowledge isn’t real, but because it operates below the level of constant attention.

• A musician may not be able to immediately articulate why a rehearsal feels wrong, only that it does.

• A teacher may shift the structure of a classroom on instinct, responding to dynamics they recognize but don’t consciously itemize.

• A mechanic may hear an engine and register that something is off long before they can isolate the specific cause.

• An experienced nurse may walk into a room and sense that something is unusual before any measurable detail has been identified.

In each case, perception is happening faster than explanation.

This is the same mechanism OSASCOMP exposes in miniature. The more familiar a system becomes, the more it hides itself. Language simply makes the pattern visible. What once required attention becomes instinct, "how things are." Second nature, if you will.

Section 4: The Fiction Writer's Version of OSASCOMP

For writers, this matters because it is often exactly this invisible layer—the part practitioners can’t easily explain—that carries the most authentic detail.

When writers conduct research, they often begin with facts. They ask questions like:

• What tools do you use?

• How long does training take?

• What does a typical day look like?

• What procedures do you follow?

And these questions are useful. They are very necessary. But accuracy alone still leaves a world flat, because it remains external to the logic that governs it.

When doing research and speaking with folk, *pay attention* to phrases like:

• "That's just how it's done."

• "Everybody knows that."

• "You'd never do it that way."

• "That feels wrong."

• "I never really thought about it."

These comments often point toward assumptions and habits that are deeply embedded within a community. Dig deeper and ask why. Get that authenticity from understanding what people take for granted.

It can be tricky to get this information. To simply ask somebody, "What has become so normal that you don't think about it?" is likely to be met with "I don't know." Because they don't think about it. Your job as a writer and researcher is to eventually get to the tacit knowledge questions.

Ask the explicit knowledge questions first. Peel back those layers. Get the facts and read between those lines to find the spaces your "Why's?" can fit. The goal is to move from what they know to how they know.

When someone says, "That's just how it's done."

• How did you learn that?

• Who taught you?

• What would happen if someone didn't do it that way?

• Is there ever a situation where you'd break that rule?

• What does a newcomer usually get wrong about this?

• Can you remember the first time you saw it done correctly?

  
  

When someone says, "Everybody knows that."

• How would a beginner find that out?

• When do people usually learn it?

• What clues would tell someone that if nobody explained it to them?

• Has anyone ever not known that and gotten into trouble?

• If you had to teach it to a new hire, how would you explain it?

• Is it written down anywhere, or do people just pick it up?

When someone says, "You'd never do it that way."

• Why not?

• What feels off about it?

• What problems would it cause?

• Have you ever seen someone try?

• What's the difference between the wrong way and the right way?

• How can you tell the difference at a glance?

When someone says, "That feels wrong."

• What specifically feels wrong about it?

• What would feel right instead?

• Can you point to an example?

• How do you know when something is right before you can explain why?

• Is it a safety issue, an efficiency issue, a cultural issue, or something else?

• Would everyone in the field agree with you?

When someone says, "I never really thought about it."

• Could you walk me through what you actually do?

• What's the first thing you notice?

• What about it are you paying attention to that a beginner might miss?

• How do you make that decision in the moment?

• What signs tell you it's working?

• If I followed you around for a day, what would I see you doing automatically?

If you only ask for facts, you learn what people do.

If you keep asking questions, you learn how they think.

That comparison matters because readers are remarkably, fantastically, scarily good at sensing the difference. Readers rarely evaluate authenticity by checking facts. They instead respond to patterns. They notice when a character reacts the way a real person in that world would react. They notice when a setting seems lived in rather than assembled from a list of details. A story becomes more convincing when characters interact with their world in ways that reflect the habits and assumptions of the people who inhabit it.

Just as English speakers unconsciously follow the rules of adjective order, people unconsciously follow thousands of social, professional, and cultural rules every day. They know which mistakes mark someone as an outsider. They know which shortcuts are acceptable and which are dangerous. They know what feels right, what feels wrong, and what "everybody knows."

As writers, our job is not simply to collect information. It is to uncover the assumptions, habits, instincts, and unwritten rules that shape how people move through the world. Facts help us describe a world. Tacit knowledge helps us understand it.

Conclusion

Most English speakers use OSASCOMP correctly without ever learning its name. The rule exists beneath explanation. Things are observed rather than taught, enacted rather than stated. And that's the point! Much of what we call knowledge is not conscious at all, but absorbed until it feels "second nature."

OSASCOMP is a teeny, tiny, microscopic, blink-and-you-miss-it, almost comically small fragment of the far larger tacit knowledge system. What it points to is larger: the way humans take repeated experience and turn it into instinct, until structure disappears into behavior.

Every profession, every practice, every community develops its own version of this. Not rules in the formal sense, but accumulations of judgment and habit that settle so deeply they stop registering as choices. They become the air inside the system.

For fiction writers, this is a structure to get in, on, and around to.

Facts will give you accuracy. They will tell you what tools are used, what procedures are followed, what a day looks like when it is described from the outside. But accuracy alone still leaves a world flat, because it remains external to the logic that governs it.

A character does not become convincing because they can describe their world. They become convincing because they move through it correctly—because they recognize what matters without needing to translate it into explanation. Because they flinch at the right thing. Because they ignore what an outsider would overread. Because they carry assumptions that never surface in dialogue, but nonetheless shape the story.

OSASCOMP, in this sense, is not the subject. It is the reminder: every world has an order beneath its language. And the task of the writer is not only to describe that order, but to make it felt by the reader without ever naming it.

Picture those elderly, overqualified-for-this, faintly bureaucratic knitting spiders one more time for me,

Katherine Arkady