Yes, I haven’t checked Sitran’s link yet, but the simple rule I was taught in school is that for comparatives and superlatives, two-syllable words are modified with a new ending, and three-syllable words and longer are modified with "more" or "most", respectively.
Watch out for the -ed ending tho. Combined things can’t be combin’der, they have to be more combined. Not an adjective, but very close. The ending used to be a separate syllable in English, and it’s still a verb form, but ‘bested’ only has ‘better’ to fall back on. Not easy for someone learning English, we like to ignore parts of speech and just use words as they are.
My kids have been using words like "funner" and "funnest" instead of "more fun" and "most fun". Αm not really sure why these sound wrong, but I suppose its because fun is really a noun, even though it is used like an adjective. Is "a fun game" a funny construction?
fun
1685, v., "to cheat, hoax," probably a variant of M.E. fon "befool" (c.1400), later "trick, hoax, practical joke," of uncertain origin. Stigmatized by Johnson as "a low cant word." Older sense is preserved in phrase to make fun of and funny money "counterfeit bills" (1938, though this may be more for the sake of the rhyme); sense of "amusement" is 1727. See also funny.
funny
"humorous," 1756, from fun (q.v.). Meaning "strange, odd" is 1806, said to be originally U.S. Southern. The two senses of the word lead to the retort question "funny ha-ha or funny peculiar," which is attested from 1938. Funny farm "mental hospital" is slang from 1963. Funny bone "elbow end of the humerus" is 1840; funnies "newspaper comic strips" is from 1852.
"Prettier" is still fine but the evolutionary trend in English has been towards more analytical constructions. French already has plus joli m. / plus jolie f. for "prettier" and eventually it will be just "more pretty" in English with the suffix -ier gone. ;)
I am left wondering how come "pretty" specially is the main battleground for comparative constructions. Because it sounds Latinish? Then one can count some more words that are conjugated with the normative suffix.
[quote author=brian_costello link=board=grammar;num=1111009294;start=0#7 date=06/25/05 at 02:40:08]"Prettier" is still fine but the evolutionary trend in English has been towards more analytical constructions. French already has plus joli m. / plus jolie f. for "prettier" and eventually it will be just "more pretty" in English with the suffix -ier gone. ;)
I don’t understand the connection here. What does the French construction have to do with common English?
My guess is that funner and funnest feel wrong because fun is still felt to be a noun. As it gets used more in an adjectival way (e.g. a fun thing to do), funner and funnest will become acceptable.
In the US people in hospitals are sick, and I suppose it’s OK to be sicker than your neighbour. In Britain people in hospitals are ill, but you can’t grammatically be iller than your neighbour. This, I guess, is because ill is still felt to be an adverb, not an adjective?
