Do you have to say adjust before touching or after?

^

Strict tournament rules require saying "I adjust" before touching the piece. He would be forced to move his queen somewhere if there were a legal move for it to make if he touched it. Casual games are different. You can decide to be flexible, if you like, and overlook it. For a casual unrated game, I would not make an issue of it.

Yep, that about sums it up. Casual, you can ignore touch move if you want, but adjust is before.

My high school team liked to keep saying it during the other player's turn and moving pieces around in their squares to distract them.

Not sportsmanlike, but really funny.

Our team was always going to win, anyway (we played with people who, to be fair, could barely play), so while we enjoyed the wins, and the game, the thrill of victory wasn't there, so we needed the extra laughs.

I didn't participate in that much, I made friendly conversation instead. People not playing were required to remain silent, but the players were under no such compulsion.

yeah.

Clearly before. If it were permissible afterwards then people throughout the ages would move pieces and then when they realized it was a mistake they'd just go "Oh, adjust!" and keep taking moves back forever and ever. No game could ever finish if that were possible.

     Before. If you grab ahold of a piece it is assumed that you intend to move it (or capture it if it is an opponents' piece), so that piece MUST be moved (or captured). If the piece has no legal move (or there is no legal capture) the player can make any legal move with any other piece. If a player picks up a piece and puts it down, that move is irrevocable as soon as they let go, no matter what the player says or does (unless the move is illegal). Only saying "adjust" (or J'adoube, French for "I adjust", or whatever the word is in the local language) allows the player to touch a piece without moving it.

     It seems obvious that the warning must be made before touching the piece for reasons that DreanscapeHorizons just pointed out.

     In most cases, brushing against or accidentally knocking over a piece while reaching for a different piece will be overlooked if the player says "J'adoube" immediately and makes a move with the intended piece while restoring the other piece to its place. Extreme nitpickers or someone just looking to cause trouble may insist that you move the accidently-touched piece. Refuse and tell them to call the tournament director. It is very unlikely their demand will be upheld.

     Under NO circumstances is it acceptable for a player to touch a piece for any reason when it is his opponent's move.

Not trynna be rude but it's funny how you give such a long answer over such a small topic. 

be fore

Technically, it should be before or during the touch, but some players don't mind if their opponent says it after.

     Trying to answer any questions OP may have had.

It was during

Slap who out of mongolia?

I like how tournament play has all these rules but, in reality, you can't really enforce them if your opponent is in an argumentative mood (or just hyper competitive, as these events can often be). Nobody wants to lose by a technicality so they will do whatever it takes like what's stopping them frorm saying you're lying and making stuff up. In general, how players behave during a game is based on etiquette (and mutual respect for the other player and for chess).

In every tournament game I've played, nobody ever says "jadoube" - they always say "adjust"

b4

@brianchesscake - my chess coach on my high school team insisted that we say j'adoube. It's not my fault that he was weird.

There was an incident in the 60s or 70s in which a Yugoslav GM named Matulović picked up a piece, realized that moving it would be a mistake, set it down and said "J'adoube". His opponent didn't object, even though it was a clear violation of the touch-move rule. Thereafter, Matulović was often referred to as Jaboudović.