Good, better, best!

Some thoughts on adjective comparison.

Adjectives can be compared in three ways. The quality they express can be related to a higher degree, to the same degree, or to a lower degree.

The higher degree can be expressed inflectionally by adding -er /- est, or periphrastically using more / most.

Comparison to the same degree is expressed using as…as.
The lower degree is expressed by using less / least.

The rules are simple aren’t they?

Here are some we might give our students:

1. One syllable adjectives add – er / est.
Examples: Big, bigger, biggest. Wrong, wronger, wrongest. (Oh dear! That’s not right.)
2. Two syllable adjectives can take both – er / est and more / most.
Examples: Cleverer / more clever. Eagerer / more eager. (Oh dear again! You can’t say “eagerer”.)
3. Adjectives of 3 syllables or longer use more / most.
Examples: More dangerous. More unhappy. (But can’t you also say “unhappier”? – Hmm.)
4. Comparatives take than and don’t take the.
Examples: I’m better than him. May the better man win. (Are you trying to confuse me?)
5. Superlatives take the.
Examples: She’s the best. I’m the most happy when I think of her. (Hang on – we don’t need a the before the most there, do we?)

So, not as / (so) simple as we think, eh?

Now, here are 15 sentences. Which do you think are good English, and if they are not, why not? (My thoughts are below – feel free to disagree.)

1. I’m more better-looking than anyone I know!
2. It wasn’t so good as I’d expected.
3. It was so good as I’d expected.
4. The most of the Earth is covered by water.
5. This is the best of the bunch.
6. The more, the merrier.
7. I couldn’t be more happy.
8. It’s all for the best.
9. It’s best in the long run.
10. I want it more loud.
11. I want it more loud and dynamic.
12. This was the most unkindest cut of all.
13. My elder brother is elder than me.
14. I was just unluckier than him on the day.
15. That was the unconventionalest tennis shot I’ve ever seen.
1.
Compound adjectives come in two forms – those beginning with a noun (life-changing, death-defying, soul-destroying) and those beginning with an adjective (good-looking, hard-hitting, fast-selling). If it’s a noun, you have to use more / most, If an adjective, you can choose: more good-looking or better-looking, but you can’t have it both ways, so sentence 1 is bad English.

2 & 3.
I’m so sorry, I’m as sorry as can be, but in my view, sentence 2 is O.K. and 3 not. Using so in negative comparative utterances is now common and acceptable. (You’re not so sure, huh?)

4, 5, 8, 9.
I wouldn’t put The at the start of sentence 4, but would in 5. Both sentences have of clauses. Sentence 8 needs the and 9 doesn’t. Why? Answers on a postcard please.

6.
When a change in one quality is linked to a change in another, the is commonly used before comparatives, especially in proverbial phrases – “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

7, 10 & 11.
Why not happier? Well, you choose. Both are acceptable. Isn’t sentence 10 wrong? Shouldn’t it be louder? Loud is a one syllable adjective, isn’t it. Yes, but, especially in speech, you’ll find that use of the periphrastic here for emphasis increasingly common – can it get more good?
When two adjectives are used, as in sentence 11, more is what you’ll find prefacing both, even if the first is a monosyllable.

12.
From Hamlet. You got a problem with a double superlative?

13.
I’m older than you. Elder is only used for family relations and not beforethan.

14 & 15.
3 syllable adjectives beginning with un can take the inflected or periphrastic form – unluckier / more unlucky - but that don’t work with longer syllables, so, sorry, it has to be most unconventional.