Native English speakers… I hear the order of adjectives is important, and getting this wrong is jarring to read.
I’m making a pitch to upper management about building a “modular and versatile thingamawidget”. Or is it “versatile and modular thingamawidget”?
If it doesn’t matter, I think I’ll go for the latter, as it abbreviates to something easily pronouncable without sounding like a paramilitary group or a ride sharing business.
Neither sounds “wrong” to my ear, but if I had to pick one, hmmmm…I think modular things are inherently versatile, but versatile things aren’t inherently modular, so I would go with “versatile and modular” so it gets more specific from first word to second word.
Or consider not using both those words.
Edit: the order of adjectives usually matters when they are different types of adjectives, like “five big brown bears”. You have a number, a size, and a color. That one sounds wrong if you get them out of order. But modular and versatile are the same kind of adjective, so I don’t think there’s really a wrong choice here.
I tend to agree with you. Plus, with this particular thing, it’s possible to build it to be modular and not versatile, or the other way around. Or neither, which we’re using now.