Comparatives

[LarryLatham]

It's good enough for me, szwagier!

Larry Latham

[dduck]

I like your use of current final. I also see these 'Masters of the Universe' have used some weasle-words: In some cases - some people occasionally choose to speak backwards. Some people bark like a dog. Woof woof!

Nevertheless, it is interesting
Iain

[szwagier]

Just like the old irregular verb grids:

"I am employing sensible academic caution"

"You are qualifying everything"

"He is using weasel words"

[Harzer]

I suppose Longmans ...... Current English would pooh-pooh it, but it is indubitably the fact that in Australian English the "double comparative" is increasingly commonly heard:

"I have never met a more nicer lady"; "X is a more cheaper beer than Y" etc.

And I suspect this usage is not confined to Australia.

Harzer

[CS]

1.1 But, I've seen lots of natives (mainly) deviate this "rule" by using the word more before the adjective (more green, more close, more wise...) I've seen natives utter such sentences and in songs, is this a common phenomena? May I say that English is simplifying step-by-step the construction of comparasions?

SOURCE
Merriam-Webster's:

A double comparison is a pairing of more or most with an adjective that is already inflected for the comparative or superlative degree. For instance, when you hear someone describe someone else as "more prettier" or as "the most friendliest person".

Double comparisons have a lot of historical precedent. English speakers have used more and most as intensives since the fourteenth century, applying them much in the same way we use the word very. We certainly find plenty of evidence of this usage in Shakespeare: consider "the most unkindest cut of all" from Julius Caesar and "more fairer than fair" from Love's Labour's Lost.

Then, in the seventeenth century, use of the intensive more and most began to decline, at least partly because of the attack mounted against double comparative and double superlative constructions by eighteenth-century grammarians. That battle was enthusiastically joined by nineteenth-century grammarians, who ensured that strictures against those constructions were incorporated into schoolbook grammars. As a result, double comparisons and double superlatives have pretty much disappeared from standard writing, although they still exist in speech.

3.2 Can I use lesser as a comparative? Can you show me one or two examples?

ADJECTIVE: chose the lesser evil.
ADVERB: a lesser-known writer.
NOUN: the lesser of two evils.

[LarryLatham]

Thank you CS...

...for the very informative and nicely put post. It's wonderful to read posts from teachers (and other interested people) who are willing to delve into some of the realities of the actual uses and usages of English, and risk departure from the rigid strictures of most of our grammar textbooks.

Welcome to this forum!

Larry Latham

[Metamorfose]

Thank you CS...

...for the very informative and nicely put post. It's wonderful to read posts from teachers (and other interested people) who are willing to delve into some of the realities of the actual uses and usages of English, and risk departure from the rigid strictures of most of our grammar textbooks.

Welcome to this forum!

Larry Latham

Yeah Larry, undoubtly the people who are really the onwer of the real language are the real grammarians and the ones which one should look at to get the real thing, but the question that is always risen is how to set these knowledge in classroom, how to tell the pupils that this is not wrong in a strictu sensus and yet not acceptable in some situations?

I may be redundant, but, when will people accept that languages chance as people change throughout history? When will people accept linguistics theories and facts as any other science which had their paradigms in the past and have changed some of these theories?

In the end, as I have always believed,language is more richer and than one more freer than any grammarian wish it wasn't.

José

PS: I can't forget to thank CS for their explanation

[dduck]

Yeah Larry, undoubtly the people who are really the onwer of the real language are the real grammarians and the ones which one should look at to get the real thing, but the question that is always risen is how to set these knowledge in classroom, how to tell the pupils that this is not wrong in a strictu sensus and yet not acceptable in some situations?

For me, language comes first, analysis should come second. I guess I'm turning into a linguist and not a grammarian. It's true that G-men analyze the language, and people expect them to declare what standard English is. But that's not the real language, only one artificial version derived from a vast sea of language.

What teachers explain in the classroom will largely be based around standard English.

I may be redundant, but, when will people accept that languages chance as people change throughout history? When will people accept linguistics theories and facts as any other science which had their paradigms in the past and have changed some of these theories?

I think you're mixing up linguists with G-men. Linguists change with the language, G-men try to change the language. I think it's hard to force a change upon a language, Franco tried hard to get rid of Catalan; Scots stopped being taught in school, but these languages didn't die out. The biggest cause of change is fashion, and young people. Latin was for a time the european Lingua Franca; English speakers learned it avidly. Inevitably, a fashion started and some latin rules were ludicrously brought to bear upon English, e.g. the split infinitive.

In the end, as I have always believed,language is more richer and than one more freer than any grammarian wish it wasn't.

I like the way that Spanish works más rico, y más libre, but double comparatives sound ugly to me. Now, more rich, and more free sound just fine.

Iain

[Metamorfose]

Iain

Is Scots a different language or just a dialect of English?

I guess you are right I had mixed up what you called G-men (nice term) and linguists and the difference between them and you explaned the difference very didatically, maybe a mixture of both when analysing (or teaching or explaining) any language would be the ideal, not too stick on forms and rules and yet not too stick on the everything goes ( I know it's not fair stating such a thing but it's for the lack of a more precise term.)

Mi amigo es más rico que yo=> Meu amigo é mais rico do que eu, (yeah I think that I will not have a hard time learning Spanish that I thought before.)

José

[dduck]

Scots (or Lallans meaning lowlands) is the form of speech used in lowland Scotland, and parts of Northern Ireland and border ares of the Republic of Ireland. Although, there has been some dispute as to whether Scots is a dialect of English, or a separate language in its own right, the British government now accepts Scots as a language and has recognised it under the European Charter for Regional and Minority Languages. Evidence for its existence as a separate language lies in the extensive body of Scots literature; in the existence of several Scots dialects; and in its former use as the official language of the original Scottish Parliament.

Meu amigo é mais rico do que eu

I'm not sure what do means above. I'm having good time in Barcelona, lots of the signs are in three languages, so I'm picking up the odd bit of Catalan!

Iain

[Metamorfose]

I'm not sure what do means above.

The Portuguese do is equivalent to Spanish del

But now I just wonder how odd it is this preposition comparing to the same structure in Spanish, I guess I need to go through my Grammar books again

I'm having good time in Barcelona

Yeah, you got it! Well, hope that one day I may go to Buenos Aires (it's much more near and cheaper for me) and the signs are just in Castelliano

José