FINER, MORE FINE, FINEST, OR
MOST FINE?--REAL USAGE 

© 2001 by Orchid Land Publications

C.-J. N. Bailey

[updated 2-20-01 (bis)] 

     1. There are several places in which educated English prefers compound forms like more old to the inflected comparatives.  The most frequent occurrence is in double comparisons; e.g. "He's more old than tired."  Sometimes we just avoid two different ways of comparing, preferring "more beautiful and fine" to "more beautiful and finer"--at least when the adjectives are attributive--i.e. directly precede the noun they modify.  Other instances will be added when the writer gets time to check his notes.

     2. In attributive use, we differentiate nicer and nicest in a way we often ignore in predicative use:  "It's a nicer day . . . " or "It's the nicest day . . . " but "Today's the nicest (of the two days)."  Cf. "the older daughter" vs. "She's the oldest [of the two]."  (French does attrihutive as well as predicative usages this way.)

     3. In compounds, we do not use adverbs ending in -ly; we say and write new-created or newly created but not newly-created (even with the stress appropriate to this kind of compound word).  We can say widely spread or, more simply, widespread.

     4. Note that when most means "very, quite, exceedingly," it can go with only one item.

    5. Many adverbs that otherwise end in -ly lack this firnatuve when used as intensifiers, in which case they lose their literal meanings--e.g. hard, just, right, real, very, (al)most, plain, flat, pretty, bloody, clear, stark, sure, awful,  jolly, quick, etc.  Exceeding used to belong to this grouping.  The contradiction that would be present in prettily ugly is absent in pretty ugly; it is parallel with plain handsome, real unreal, awfully nice, bloody clean, hardly soft, right erroneous, just unfair, flat-out in a heap, clear into the puddle, stark weak, stark naked, etc.  Some intensifiers are asystematic in having -ly at the end--highly, wholly, fully, greatly, nearly, etc.   "She's sure tired" and "She's surely tired" mean different things, as do "It's most disorderly" and "It's mostly disorderly"; and it is likewise with other similar pairs.  

     6. Contrast "her quickly rescuing the child" with "his quick rescue of the child."  The difference is obvious.

    7. The asymmetrical--or systematically out-of-order--few has been pretty well replaced by less, which equally contrasts with more.

CLICK HERE FOR ANOTHER PAGE ON SIMILAR 
 DIFFERENCES IN PARTICIPLIAL FORMS NOT
FOUND IN MOST GRAMMARS

The reader is referred to booklets published by Orlapubs:
Why more English instruction won't mean better grammar
& How gramars of English have missed the boat

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