This isn’t a superlative adjective anymore, but comparing things. Does it add character in some point?
For example, ‘he’s the bigger of the two guards’ or ‘he’s the biggest of the two guards’?
What explains the comparative is bigger or more difficult than others. If there are only two members of a set to be described, then surely both forms are equivalent?
What is the nature of comparative and superlative when they are not regular? e.g., ‘My puzzle is the more difficult of the two’ or’my puzzle is the most difficult of the two’?
I think I’d probably use the comparative but it seems logical that the superlative would be OK too.
Grammar books have the comparative for two and the superlative for three or more.
What are some of the best written English overlatives?
When was’mistaken’ as between only two entities grammatically correct? Ignored grammatically. To be worst is rhetorically requires more than two points of comparison, first between a pair and then between a second pair neither of which has as yet been eliminated…hence superlative, not comparative disposition…since no more than two things can be compared at a time.
“Bigger” would be natural when comparing only two, “biggest” when the set is larger. With the most difficult situation, what are
the consequences?
Weird. Here’s a typical usage chart for XXXer / XXest of the two with heavier/heaviest… The
same general pattern shows with older/oldest, larger/largest, etc. At some point in early C19, the superlative -est form starts to fall out of favour. While it doesn’t sound terrible to my modern ear, apparently these days we don’t normally say something is the tallest of the two. The estimates in that link are totally unrealistic (there are only 27 instances, mostly old ) but I’m prepared to believe there really are 44,000 instances to is the taller of the two as claimed.
What strikes me as particularly odd is that “irregular” worse/worst barely shows the effect….
I don’t know why that change occurred a couple of centuries ago, but I consider it significant that worse/worst has been least affected, and better/best changed later than the strictly regular forms. I like people who were less “schooled” (in logic, grammar, etc.) simply didn’t bother making a special case for this particular comparative with only two candidates… In fact, the two candidates were basically the same… Before education became more widespread, with more teachers told more pupils to be more logical, and use the “right” word in such contexts.
If we see another logic that we can build on, then why we don’t do it? I suspect worse/worst is more resistant because it’s not so obviously patterns teachers (or our own “inner logicians”) rail against. And consider a context where the “only two candidates” aspect is less overt…
Kidnapper: “I’ll let you go if your parents pay a ransom.” “Give me their phone number”
Victim: “The couple they divorced years ago. I messed with them one day. I think i was in their attorney’s office.” Which parent number do you want? ”
Kidnapper: “The richest one, dummy!” I
know the dialogue’s a bit crummy; but I certainly don’t think changing it to richer would help.
If there was logic when the “reduce” superlative was used, why would someone use the reference instead of comparatives? Why do we try to do this so often unless the actual words make it glaringly obvious.
