Working writers, aspiring writers, and struggling writers have often encountered the hint, sometimes even phrased as a rule, "Eliminate adjectives." Usually Hemingway is invoked just before or after that is propounded. Since the first word of this blog entry served as its first adjective, you might already have grasped that I don't take that hint to heart. But don't listen to me. I'll invoke a higher authority: Roald Dahl. "He had a fine white mustache and bushy white eyebrows and a wrinkly pink face." That is how Dahl describes the title character in his short story, "The Umbrella Man." That sentence breaks at least three of the rules associated with the authoritative manuals. It uses a weak predicate (the verb is a form of "to have," which is almost as bad as "to be"!) It says something in a lot of words that it might have said in fewer ("he was old but still healthy" might do it for a minimalist). And i...