"Once upon a midnight dreary, While I pondered, weak and weary," (these are the first lines of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe). Is "dreary" a noun here, with "midnight" serving as the adjective that describes it? The reason I'm asking is because I haven't f (2024)

• English (US)

No, "dreary" is an adjective here. In poetic language, sometimes the adjective comes after the noun instead of before it, in order to improve the rhyme scheme of verse or to add special emphasis to the phrase.

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• English (US)

No, "dreary" is an adjective here. In poetic language, sometimes the adjective comes after the noun instead of before it, in order to improve the rhyme scheme of verse or to add special emphasis to the phrase.

• Russian

@jimpjorps Thanks a lot for your quick response.
But how do you know that? Why can't it be "dreary," whatever it means, that occurs at midnight (same as "midnight walk")?

• English (US)

Like you discovered, "dreary" isn't a noun. There's no way that "midnight dreary" can refer to "a dreary" that has the properties of midnight, since there's no such thing as "a dreary".

• Russian

@jimpjorps I see. So you just have to know whether or not the word can possibly be used as noun to navigate cases like this one.
Thanks a lot once again.

• English (US)

As Jimpjorps pointed out, this device is commonly used in poetry. Another example is Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric". But there are also fixed phrases in the everyday language where we put the adjective after the noun.
For instance:

⦿ The phrase: "all things [adj]". For instance, Rodion is interested in all things English — meaning anything that has to do with the English language or the English culture, depending on the context.
⦿ Similar to this phrase is "all matters [adj]". Rodion defers to his attorney on all matters legal, but he turns to HiNative on all matters English.
⦿ In the US, we have an Attorney General.
⦿ In heaven, we have God Almighty.
⦿ If you're extremely talented at something — the piano, for instance — we say, Rodion is a pianist extraordinaire.
⦿ A common way to say "a lot" — a lot of books, for instance — is, Rodion has books galore.
⦿ We also use "aplenty" in the sense of a lot, Rodion has books aplenty.
⦿ When someone is extremely sinister and evil, we say, Rodion is the devil incarnate. [ɪŋkʰárnɛt]
⦿ If you're willing to pay a little more for something extra, some restaurants offer a deluxe version of their dishes. For instance, a "hamburger deluxe" may come with bacon and guacamole for five more dollars.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45472/i-...
https://www.clozemaster.com/blog/author/john-me... : In the profile by his picture: "With his masters degree in Linguistics and Communication from Leiden University, he writes about all matters linguistic and translates between English, French and Russian."

• Russian

@CocoPop Jeez, thanks a lot for this. This is very interesting. I'd heard many of the expressions you've listed, but I never thought there was something particularly "unusual" about them, even though there obviously is. (Except for, maybe, "all things [noun/adj]," which I remember googling a few months ago.)

• English (US)