Summer’s not over yet, so there’s still time to enjoy a fantastically refreshing, ice-cold summer drink.
There are bubbly red, green or white spritzers, sweet cola-flavored sodas, creamy ice-cream shakes, healthy flavorful iced teas, naturally juicy fruit juices and of course, all sorts of long or short, alcohol-infused, salted-rimmed, lime- or lemon-adorned daiquiris, margaritas and cocktails.
But before reading a couple of delightful, easy-to-make drinks, let’s review a few rules that can help you line up adjectives as in the sentences above.
There are adjectives that express an opinion, as in the sentence she is beautiful, and adjectives that express a fact, as in she is American.
When using more than one adjective to qualify a noun, note that there is a certain order to follow:
Opinion adjectives + size + shape + age + color + nationality + material
Using all these adjectives together in a single sentence will probably never happen, so you don’t really have to memorize this order. Instead, whenever you come across a cluster of adjectives, repeat them orally, paying attention to the sequence. Also, write your own phrases describing things around you with two or three adjectives, and soon you’ll be using them in the correct position.
Look at some examples below.
a nice tall young man
a big white linen sheet
a beautiful new black Italian leather bag
When there are more than two adjectives before a noun there’s no need to use and, except if the last two are adjectives of color.
Example: an enormous blue and white beach umbrella
When adjectives come after the verbs be, seem, appear and look they are separated by commas and the last two adjectives are separated by and.
Example:
The day was beautiful, sunny and warm.
The house looked unkempt, small and old.
Sometimes, as in the sentences describing drinks above, you can qualify a noun using another noun. Some combinations of noun + noun are so common that they become a single word, as in toothpaste or raincoat. Other times, they appear as two separate words as in credit card or bicycle chain. And at other times, especially when the combination is not very common, a hyphen is used, as in a salt-rimmed glass.
Now, since you read all the grammar explanations above, as a reward, you get two amazingly refreshing recipes for summer drinks. Cheers!
Strawberry Frozen Daiquiri (serves 4)
3 cups of ice
¼ cup of sugar
2 ounces of frozen strawberries
two tablespoons of fresh lime juice
½ cup of rum
Directions: In a blender mix all the ingredients and serve in martini glasses.
This drink is also delicious without the rum!
"NCI iced tea". Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons -
Blueberry Mint Iced Tea
12 ounces of frozen blueberries
½ cup of lemon juice
1 handful of washed mint leaves
3 tea bags (English breakfast or similar)
¾ cup of sugar
Place the blueberries, lemon juice and sugar in a saucepan. Simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. After the mixture has cooled a bit, pass it through a strainer. Prepare the tea according to the instructions on the box and after removing the bags, add the strained sweetened blueberries and lemon mixture and the mint leaves. Refrigerate for alt least two hours. Serve in tall glasses with ice.
