Two adverbs in a row: "I counted my classmates one by one out loud." [closed]

Solution 1:

Thanks to Jason for this link...

Order of Adverbs

1. Manner
2. Place
3. Frequency
4. Time
5. Purpose

But note that it's not obvious to at least two competent native speakers (myself and Jason) exactly why one by one should come further down the list than out loud. All we know for sure is we want out loud to be as close as possible to the verb (count), because it has very "high" priority in this context.

a: I counted them one by one, out loud
b: I counted them out loud, one by one
c: Out loud, I counted them one by one
d: One by one, I counted them out loud
e: One by one, out loud I counted them
f: Out loud, one by one I counted them

Whether and where to include commas are stylistic choices above. They're all syntactically "valid", but at least some of us would prefer out loud to immediately follow the verb (count).

It's not appropriate to include the conjunction and between these particular adverbial elements, even if they appear consecutively (examples a,b,e,f). But offhand I don't know why that is¹, given we would include it in a similar construction such as I counted them slowly and carefully.

EDIT: ¹ As Edwin comments, there's a "subtle zeugma" involved (the verb to count is being "differently" modified by the two adverbial elements, in a way that makes them too disparate to be idiomatically linked using and).

Solution 2:

The Royal Order of Adverbs has already been discussed on ELU.

This example contains two adverbs of the same category (manner) but very different subcategories, because they're essentially modifying two different senses of count:

1. to determine the total number in a set
2. to enunciate that determining process [counting out]

Here, 'one by one' describes the way the summing is done, and 'out loud' shows that sense (2) is in play. So the usual 'rule'

• When we use multiple adverbs of the same category to modify the same verb, we order them based on how specific the information is that they provide.

does not apply. The 'manners' described are orthogonal.

However, 'counting out', often used in primary schools, shows a large degree of cohesion between 'count' and 'out [loud]'. This adverbial needs to be close to the verb, as others have commented.

A complication is that 'count' sounds off when separated from the direct object.

A reasonable compromise, as FumbleFingers suggests, is

• I counted my classmates out loud, one by one.

The comma is at least preferable to echo the pause most would leave between the adverbials. It helps with parsing, and is in line with the comma between coordinate adjectives.