Adjectives – When Can an Adjective Be Postposed?

adjectivesword-order

I read this at the economist, and it's the 2nd sentence in the 2nd paragraph.

That is small consolation for an Israeli establishment still hankering after the much easier rapport it had with Egypt's ousted Mubarak regime, especially in matters military.

At first I thought "matters" here means "important", because I tend to understand it this way: "especially in military that matters". Then it occurs to me that phrase like "something good" has the "noun + adjective" structure, so I guess "matters military" means "military matters". But it really costs me a lot of time to figure it out, and I would have put it as "military matters" instead. Because my limited language sense tells me I can postpose an adjective (phase) only when it's used with unspecified pronouns such as "anything, everything or something", or when the phrase itself is too long.

So question one: In this case, which one sounds more comfortable to you? matters military or military matters?

Qustion two: When can I postpose an adjective and when is it imperative?

Best Answer

Question 1: They both sound good to me, but I prefer "military matters" because it's not pretentious or excessively literary. Question 2: There are a few adjectives, e.g., galore, that must be postposed.

There are sentences in which postposing the adjective is normal:

In some instances, adjectives can follow the direct object, in which case it is described as postposed, such as
'he paints the house red',
'they made the party wonderful'.

There are set phrases with postposed adjectives:

court-martial
attorney general

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