"... an acceptable straight line"
Can anyone help me understand why "an acceptable straight line" sounds unnatural? This is the sentence : "I was barely able to draw an acceptable straight line."

I wondered if "acceptable" should only be used predicatively but I can think of attributive usages e.g. an acceptable result.

If it was academic writing, then I think it would be OK (with a comma between the adjectives), because the reader will read literally and no confusion should arise. However, this writing is neutral or informal. The reader might be confused and think that the writer meant "acceptably straight" (straight enough).

But my preferred theory is that the two adjectives are very different in meaning. "straight" is about objective physical appearance and "acceptable" is about opinion. In this case, it's better to put the adjective about opinion after the verb in order to separate the ideas clearly for the reader.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Question

"... an acceptable straight line"
Can anyone help me understand why "an acceptable straight line" sounds unnatural? This is the sentence : "I was barely able to draw an acceptable straight line."

I wondered if "acceptable" should only be used predicatively but I can think of attributive usages e.g. an acceptable result.

If it was academic writing, then I think it would be OK (with a comma between the adjectives), because the reader will read literally and no confusion should arise. However, this writing is neutral or informal.  The reader might be confused and think that the writer meant "acceptably straight" (straight enough).

But my preferred theory is that the two adjectives are very different in meaning. "straight" is about objective physical appearance and "acceptable" is about opinion. In this case, it's better to put the adjective about opinion after the verb in order to separate the ideas clearly for the reader.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Answer

It's in the nature of the thing you are discussing.  It's straight line.  Things vary in quality and some are acceptable and some are not for a given purpose, but I can't imagine a context in which the best way of discussing a straight line would be to say it was acceptable.  That's why it seems unnatural.

Answer

Michael, what if you told your students that it bothers you when something absolute is made  relative? In this context “absolute“=”can be expressed in terms of either/or” and ”relative”=”belonging to a continuum”
From a strictly logical point of view something absolute can’t be more or less what it is. Either something is complete or it isn’t, for instance.
In geometry a straight line has a particular definition,  so in that context it’s meaningless to talk about an acceptable straight line, because either it’s straight or it isn’t. In real life of course a straight line will rarely, if ever, be an ideal straight line, but an approximation.
I myself don’t mind if people talk about an “acceptable straight line” because I know they mean a line that approximates a straight line well enough to be useful for an intended purpose.
I don’t know if this is of any use to you.

Answer

It actually does not sound awkward to me. Perhaps I am the odd one out though.

Answer

Mark has given a reasonable explanation but having been really bad at art, I would say that 'an acceptable straight line' is a line which looks straight enough for the purpose for which it is intended.

Best wishes

Bob