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I am used to hearing sentences like:

-It doesn't make much sense.
-It makes little sense.
-It makes no sense.
-It makes perfect sense.

However, I find it makes economic sense really interesting since it expresses a concept rather than merely emphasizes sense.

I used this collocation dictionary to find the adjectives that are usually used with the noun sense and I found four that express concepts: legal, artistic, historical, and moral.

Then, I came up with the following sentences:

  1. Saying that the world was one big country makes geographical sense.
    (referring to the theory of continental drift)

  1. Peafowls' colorful tail makes no evolutionary sense.
    (referring to the theory which says that organisms developped ways to camouflage, not ways to be more visible for predators)

  2. I think buying this 6 million dollar painting might make artistic sense.

  3. Hiring nine attorneys to work on this case makes legal sense.

I have two questions:

  1. Do my sentences seem OK?
  2. What are other adjectives that can be used similarly in the construction it makes (adj) sense to express concepts?
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  • 1
    I admire your process but we are not here to correct sentences. That said, you are doing great on your own here. :)
    – Lambie
    Apr 20, 2021 at 14:20
  • 2
    Compiling a list of words is outside the scope of this site. Any adjective that could describe a reason for doing something or choosing one thing over another would probably work with “sense”. The house’s curved walls made aesthetic sense, but were impractical when it came to furnishing the rooms. Talking to the cops without waiting for a lawyer was a bad idea in the legal sense, but it was the most expedient choice.
    – ColleenV
    Apr 20, 2021 at 14:20

2 Answers 2

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All your examples make grammatical sense.

What you have discovered is the malleability of English. Just about any adjective can be used to describe the adjectival sense of some action or idea.

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+50

None of this makes sense. And all of it makes sense.

Geographical sense? We all live in this physical world. Land, oceans, planets, space, etc. It all makes sense.

Evolutionary sense? Evolution makes sense to most people I think. If not, those people don't make sense.

Artistic sense? In the eye of the beholder, but it makes sense to them.

Legal sense? Not sure

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