As a lifelong native Englishman (well, until I moved to Wales), I don't find the current approach weird.

real language purists would say it has to be a pair of leather small boots ;) (kidding)

Wiki disagrees with that - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adjective#Adjective_order :)

Well, anyway, if a native speaker says "no", I surrender :)

I feel I must draw your attention to the "kidding" at the end of Moeba's post.

Anyway, what you need to realise is that "pair of leather boots" is a single noun, for which the adjective "small" is being applied. So it's a small pair of leather boots. The construction "pair of small leather boots" is also valid, but reads slightly differently. Where one is a pair that is small, the other is a pair of boots, and the boots are small.

In practice, there's no real difference between the two. But what is key is whether you're applying "small" to the boots, or to the pair, as "pair" is a noun, and thus can be modified by an adjective.

Well, my logic is the following:
'Small' modifier is added to a piece of equipment and is used to indicate that it's customized to be wearable by smaller races (goblins or whatever). I can agree that pair of boots is a single piece of equipment, but the idea is that the boots "themselves" are small (and therefore pair of boots appear to be small).

In ADOM we had pairs of spiked boots, pairs of -metal- boots, pairs of seven league boots (and not spiked pair of boots etc.). I understand that size is a more simple and general concept than form, material or magic quality, but why should we name it the other way?

As a native speaker I find the current arrangement entirely acceptable.

For the basic syntactic perspective:

Both "pair of leather boots" and "boots" are noun phrases, and can be modified by adjectives. Therefore, it is acceptable to use either of those formations ("small pair of leather boots" or "pair of small leather boots"). The formation "small pair of leather boots" may be preferred by native speakers because it fits with speaker intuitions about simplifying adjective phrases; the key in this case is separating the adjectives instead of stacking them.

I suspect that the current formation (with "small" modifying the whole NP "pair of ..." rather than the internal NP "boots") is also preferable for The Creator because it is much easier to code; any normal item (club, sword, pair of boots) can be made small by the addition of the appropriate tag, and that tag can go in the same place for each item (small club, small sword, small pair of boots). If that tag had to be placed differently for some items, it would require more / different code.

Think of it this way. When you make a pair of boots, you make them at a certain size - the pair is "small", "large", etc. When you add spikes to boots, you add them one at a time.

So, when you describe the material of the boots, or the design, it applies to the boots. But the size can just as reasonably apply to the pair.

In both cases, you can really put the adjective in either place. But it's much more natural-sounding to put the size on the pair, and the type on the boot itself.

Just to demonstrate it, consider, following that "adjective order" sequence, what would happen if you put the number against boot. "pairs of two boots" - this doesn't make sense, whereas "two pairs of boots" does. Similarly, "great pair of boots" sounds more natural than "pair of great boots". Indeed, looking at that word order, the most natural place to insert the "pair of" would be between age and shape. That is, "old pair of flat-topped boots" is the natural-sounding way to put it.


This does raise a point, though. A "green pair of boots" wouldn't make much sense, but if egos turn up on boots, such a construction could, theoretically, occur. Prefix ego types would need to go before "boots", not before "pair". And I think suffix egos on boots would sound awkward ("pair of boots of kicking" sounds rather strange, whereas "pair of kicking boots" is much more natural).

If I were a shoemaker, I would make a pair of small boots, not a small pair - because they are for small legs and not for a small pair of legs.

I do agree that some adjective groups are better added to the pair, quality being the most obvious choice. And some adjective groups are better added to the boots - color, material. But for me, size (and age for that matter) fall in the middle group. And this middle group tends to weigh more on the "before boots" side. But that is probably because of me not being a native speaker or a having a special kind of perspective concerning footwear :D

Well, just as I said before - native speakers have the last word in this matter.

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