"more dense" and "denser"
Jerry Friedman
higher in salt water than fresh. Eight of them used a comparative of
"dense" in their answer. Of these, all used "more dense". This
struck me as strange--I'd use "denser". Is it generational? (Though
one of the students looks older than me.) Maybe regional? What would
you use?
By the way, none of the answers contrasted "more dense" with "less
dense", which would be about the only time I might use "more dense".
--
Jerry Friedman
Fred
"Jerry Friedman" <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:c4d91d93-859c-4989...@a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
I say more dense.
Mark Brader
> Fourteen of my students took a test with a question about floating
> higher in salt water than fresh. Eight of them used a comparative of
> "dense" in their answer. Of these, all used "more dense". This
> struck me as strange--I'd use "denser". Is it generational? (Though
> one of the students looks older than me.) Maybe regional? What would
> you use?
I feel the same way about it as Jerry.
--
Mark Brader | "The occasional accidents had been much overemphasized,
Toronto | and later investigations ... revealed that nearly 90%
m...@vex.net | ... could have been prevented." --Wiley Post, 1931
Glenn Knickerbocker
>By the way, none of the answers contrasted "more dense" with "less
>dense", which would be about the only time I might use "more dense".
Did they maybe have a series of study questions that asked them whether
one substance was "more or less dense" than another?
ŹR http://users.bestweb.net/~notr You are already too educated stupid to
understand the truth of nature's harmonic simultaneous 4-liter wine cube
J. J. Lodder
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>As in "blood is more thick than water"?
Or you could say "more thickerer" for emphasis.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Don Phillipson
news:aae8b6pqgd45bf9ea...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:43:44 +0200, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder)
> wrote:
>
>>As in "blood is more thick than water"?
>
> Or you could say "more thickerer" for emphasis.
We must agree this embiggens the language.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Don Phillipson
news:Kp-dnQ0XCd_QSi7R...@vex.net...
> Jerry Friedman :
>> Fourteen of my students took a test with a question about floating
>> higher in salt water than fresh. Eight of them used a comparative of
>> "dense" in their answer. Of these, all used "more dense". This
>> struck me as strange--I'd use "denser". Is it generational? (Though
>> one of the students looks older than me.) Maybe regional? What would
>> you use?
>
> I feel the same way about it as Jerry.
I'd bet that the reduced time allowed grammar in primary school
curricula (reduced from say 1975 or 1950) means children are no
longer taught "comparatives and superlatives" the way we were.
MC
"Don Phillipson" <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:
> "Steve Hayes" <haye...@telkomsa.net> wrote in message
> news:aae8b6pqgd45bf9ea...@4ax.com...
> > On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:43:44 +0200, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder)
> > wrote:
> >
> >>As in "blood is more thick than water"?
> >
> > Or you could say "more thickerer" for emphasis.
>
> We must agree this embiggens the language.
It's a good example of an embiggener.
--
"If you can, tell me something happy."
- Marybones
Jerry Friedman
> "Jerry Friedman" <jerry_fried...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
But I assume you don't say "more big", "more bright", "more soft",
etc. Can you say what's different about "dense"? Or is that just the
way your variety of English works?
--
Jerry Friedman
Lanarcam
>
>> I say more dense.
>
> But I assume you don't say "more big", "more bright", "more soft",
> etc. Can you say what's different about "dense"? Or is that just the
> way your variety of English works?
Its origin is not Germanic? Can that have an influence?
James Hogg
I doubt it. Few people would say "more nice". Maybe because it's not as
frequent, and because it was being used here in a scientific context,
that the students associated it with the technicaller and difficulter
words that are compared using "more" and "most".
--
James
Lanarcam
That makes more sense, of course.
James Hogg
My daughter recently encountered an even more mysterious
grammatical/cognitive phenomenon in a grammar test she gave to her
students. They had to underline all the adjectives in a short text.
Naturally, most of them missed one or two adjectives, or underlined the
occasional word that wasn't an adjective, but the strange thing was that
18 out of 33 students underlined the verb "bleed". Four of them erased
the underlining before handing in the test, but there were still 42 per
cent who believed that "bleed" was an adjective. It was in a music
review describing a song where "the emotions really bleed".
--
James
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
I might say "more bright" and "more soft" but not "more big".
I might say "more tall" particularly when it is contrasted with "less
tall".
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
MC
Lewis <g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> wrote:
> In message <i91n1k$1m2$3...@speranza.aioe.org>
> Don Phillipson <e9...@SPAMBLOCK.ncf.ca> wrote:
> > "Steve Hayes" <haye...@telkomsa.net> wrote in message
> > news:aae8b6pqgd45bf9ea...@4ax.com...
> >> On Tue, 12 Oct 2010 10:43:44 +0200, nos...@de-ster.demon.nl (J. J. Lodder)
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>>As in "blood is more thick than water"?
> >>
> >> Or you could say "more thickerer" for emphasis.
>
> > We must agree this embiggens the language.
>
> It's a perfectly cromulent word.
Well I'll be enbiggered!
(with a bit of luck)
Jerry Friedman
> On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 20:05:08 -0700 (PDT), Jerry Friedman wrote:
> >By the way, none of the answers contrasted "more dense" with "less
> >dense", which would be about the only time I might use "more dense".
>
> Did they maybe have a series of study questions that asked them whether
> one substance was "more or less dense" than another?
Aha. The relevant chapter of the textbook has "denser" once and "more
dense" twice, the second time in a boldfaced sentence about buoyancy.
(It contrasts with the following sentence, which contains "less
dense". I think you may have solved part of the mystery.
--
Jerry Friedman
Garrett Wollman
James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>My daughter recently encountered an even more mysterious
>grammatical/cognitive phenomenon in a grammar test she gave to her
>students. They had to underline all the adjectives in a short text.
>Naturally, most of them missed one or two adjectives, or underlined the
>occasional word that wasn't an adjective, but the strange thing was that
>18 out of 33 students underlined the verb "bleed". Four of them erased
>the underlining before handing in the test, but there were still 42 per
>cent who believed that "bleed" was an adjective. It was in a music
>review describing a song where "the emotions really bleed".
This would seem consistent with a style of grammar teaching that says
"adjectives are describing-words" (Geoff Pullum is off in a corner
sputtering) or similar intuitive (but wrong) definitions. (Slightly
better, at least, is "adjectives are words that modify nouns", but I
suspect that leads to almost as much confusion.)
You'd have to survey the students to find out why they thought that.
(It probably matters, of course, what the students' educational
background was.)
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wol...@bimajority.org| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
Mike Lyle
Nevertheless, it does seem to be one of the changes happening to the
language at present. I hear slightly surprising "more x" examples on BBC
about as often as I hear rather annoying weak pasts of strong verbs,
though rather more often than I hear American words for things there is
already an Imperial Standard Word for.
--
Mike.
Stan Brown
>
> "Jerry Friedman" <jerry_f...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:c4d91d93-859c-4989...@a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com...
> > By the way, none of the answers contrasted "more dense" with "less
> > dense", which would be about the only time I might use "more dense".
>
> I say more dense.
I say "more dense" when discussing the specific gravity of
substances, and "denser" when discussing the intellectual capacity of
persons.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com
Shikata ga nai...
R H Draney
>
>In article <i91r2r$3er$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>
>>My daughter recently encountered an even more mysterious
>>grammatical/cognitive phenomenon in a grammar test she gave to her
>>students. They had to underline all the adjectives in a short text.
>>Naturally, most of them missed one or two adjectives, or underlined the
>>occasional word that wasn't an adjective, but the strange thing was that
>>18 out of 33 students underlined the verb "bleed". Four of them erased
>>the underlining before handing in the test, but there were still 42 per
>>cent who believed that "bleed" was an adjective. It was in a music
>>review describing a song where "the emotions really bleed".
>
>This would seem consistent with a style of grammar teaching that says
>"adjectives are describing-words" (Geoff Pullum is off in a corner
>sputtering) or similar intuitive (but wrong) definitions. (Slightly
>better, at least, is "adjectives are words that modify nouns", but I
>suspect that leads to almost as much confusion.)
>
>You'd have to survey the students to find out why they thought that.
>(It probably matters, of course, what the students' educational
>background was.)
I never knew anyone who had trouble with the concept after this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYzGLzFuwxI
....r
--
Me? Sarcastic?
Yeah, right.
Steve Hayes
Wollman) wrote:
>In article <i91r2r$3er$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
>James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>
>>My daughter recently encountered an even more mysterious
>>grammatical/cognitive phenomenon in a grammar test she gave to her
>>students. They had to underline all the adjectives in a short text.
>>Naturally, most of them missed one or two adjectives, or underlined the
>>occasional word that wasn't an adjective, but the strange thing was that
>>18 out of 33 students underlined the verb "bleed". Four of them erased
>>the underlining before handing in the test, but there were still 42 per
>>cent who believed that "bleed" was an adjective. It was in a music
>>review describing a song where "the emotions really bleed".
>
>This would seem consistent with a style of grammar teaching that says
>"adjectives are describing-words" (Geoff Pullum is off in a corner
>sputtering) or similar intuitive (but wrong) definitions. (Slightly
>better, at least, is "adjectives are words that modify nouns", but I
>suspect that leads to almost as much confusion.)
I was taught at school that adjectives are words that modify nouns.
Do I need another definition?
Should I crosspost this to sci.lang?
Fred
--
It's more common.
Nick
If you go for the theory in Pinker's Words and Rules it's just what you
would expect. Once words drop below a certain threshold of use they
will regularise. The latter is irritating, but unavoidable.
I heard "snuck" in a BrE science programme only last week.
--
Online waterways route planner | http://canalplan.eu
Plan trips, see photos, check facilities | http://canalplan.org.uk
Eric Walker
> Fourteen of my students took a test with a question about floating
> higher in salt water than fresh. Eight of them used a comparative of
> "dense" in their answer. Of these, all used "more dense". This struck
> me as strange--I'd use "denser". Is it generational? (Though one of
> the students looks older than me.) Maybe regional? What would you use?
>
> By the way, none of the answers contrasted "more dense" with "less
> dense", which would be about the only time I might use "more dense".
Curme observes that the terminational comparative "was universal in Old
English, but it is now confined to words of one syllable and a large
number of words of two syllables . . . . Some adjectives which take -er
and -est may also take 'more' and 'most', the simple form before the noun
with classifying force, the form with 'more' and 'most' after the noun
with descriptive force." He gives as examples:
There never was a kinder and juster man."
There never was a man more kind and just.
He further adds that "Often the choice between the old and the new type
depends merely on the agreeableness of sound, so that there is much
variation in expression here."
I imagine that last covers it best.
--
Cordially,
Eric Walker, Owlcroft House
http://owlcroft.com/english/
CDB
> wol...@bimajority.org (Garrett Wollman) wrote:
>> James Hogg <Jas....@gOUTmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> My daughter recently encountered an even more mysterious
>>> grammatical/cognitive phenomenon in a grammar test she gave to her
>>> students. They had to underline all the adjectives in a short
>>> text. Naturally, most of them missed one or two adjectives, or
>>> underlined the occasional word that wasn't an adjective, but the
>>> strange thing was that 18 out of 33 students underlined the verb
>>> "bleed". Four of them erased the underlining before handing in
>>> the test, but there were still 42 per cent who believed that
>>> "bleed" was an adjective. It was in a music review describing a
>>> song where "the emotions really bleed".
>>
>> This would seem consistent with a style of grammar teaching that
>> says "adjectives are describing-words" (Geoff Pullum is off in a
>> corner sputtering) or similar intuitive (but wrong) definitions.
>> (Slightly better, at least, is "adjectives are words that modify
>> nouns", but I suspect that leads to almost as much confusion.)
>
> I was taught at school that adjectives are words that modify nouns.
>
> Do I need another definition?
>
> Should I crosspost this to sci.lang?
>
Jerry Friedman
> On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 20:05:08 -0700, Jerry Friedman wrote:
> > Fourteen of my students took a test with a question about floating
> > higher in salt water than fresh. Eight of them used a comparative of
> > "dense" in their answer. Of these, all used "more dense". This struck
> > me as strange--I'd use "denser". Is it generational? (Though one of
> > the students looks older than me.) Maybe regional? What would you use?
[Curme]
> He further adds that "Often the choice between the old and the new type
> depends merely on the agreeableness of sound, so that there is much
> variation in expression here."
>
> I imagine that last covers it best.
One thing that surprised me was the lack of variation among my
students. Another thing, though, was the variation between me and
them.
--
Jerry Friedman
sanders...@gmail.com
I realize that this discussion is over 2 years old, almost to the day in fact, but I just read an article where "denser" was used and it came across as somewhat jarring. I wondered aloud why the author chose "denser" rather than "more dense" which led me here.
There are some great cases in this discussion for "denser", such as "more thick" and "more soft", but I think the above post nailed it with "Often the choice between the old and the new type depends merely on the agreeableness of sound..."
It seems to me that we've (I attended elementary/grammar school in the mid-1980s) been conditioned by our texts to think that "more dense" sounded better. I am beginning to change my mind, however.
So is there a steadfast rule involved?
Why can something can be "more recent" but not "recenter"?
Also, it appears that just as continued use of slang changes the meaning of a word from the prior generations definition (sick, tight, boss etc.) to an entirely different one amongst the current generation, so can it change the more widely accepted use of a word/phrase such as more vs -er.
Guy Barry
sanders.marcus wrote in message
news:a45ae362-f1d3-4040...@googlegroups.com...
> I realize that this discussion is over 2 years old, almost to the day in
> fact, but I just read an article where "denser" was used and it came
> across as somewhat jarring. I wondered aloud why the author chose >
> "denser" rather than "more dense" which led me here.
so thanks for bringing it up). My understanding is that most monosyllabic
adjectives take "-er" and "-est", but there may well be exceptions I haven't
thought of.
> So is there a steadfast rule involved?
> Why can something can be "more recent" but not "recenter"?
are the ones in "-y", "-ly", "-le", "-er" and "-ow" (e.g. angrier, livelier,
abler, cleverer, mellower), plus certain ones with the accent on the last
syllable (e.g. politer, profounder). But I don't think there's a
hard-and-fast rule; he also mentions "pleasanter" among others.
--
Guy Barry
Curlytop
continuum:
> I'd certainly use "denser" (and I wasn't around for the original
> discussion,
> so thanks for bringing it up). My understanding is that most monosyllabic
> adjectives take "-er" and "-est", but there may well be exceptions I
> haven't thought of.
There's "curiouser and curiouser", preserved by Lewis Carroll.
--
ξ: ) Proud to be curly
Interchange the alphabetic letter groups to reply
Jerry Friedman
> On Tuesday, October 12, 2010 11:09:12 PM UTC-7, Eric Walker wrote:
> > On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 20:05:08 -0700, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>
> > > Fourteen of my students took a test with a question about floating
> > > higher in salt water than fresh. Eight of them used a comparative of
> > > "dense" in their answer. Of these, all used "more dense". This struck
> > > me as strange--I'd use "denser". Is it generational? (Though one of
> > > the students looks older than me.) Maybe regional? What would you use?
>
> > > By the way, none of the answers contrasted "more dense" with "less
> > >dense", which would be about the only time I might use "more dense".
>
> > Curme observes that the terminational comparative "was universal in Old
> > English, but it is now confined to words of one syllable and a large
> > number of words of two syllables . . . . Some adjectives which take -er
> > and -est may also take 'more' and 'most', the simple form before the noun
> > with classifying force, the form with 'more' and 'most' after the noun
> > with descriptive force." He gives as examples:
>
> > There never was a kinder and juster man."
>
> > There never was a man more kind and just.
>
> > He further adds that "Often the choice between the old and the new type
> > depends merely on the agreeableness of sound, so that there is much
> > variation in expression here."
>
> > I imagine that last covers it best.
>
>
> I realize that this discussion is over 2 years old, almost to the day in fact,
my twenties any more?
> but I just read an article where "denser" was used and it came across as somewhat jarring. I wondered aloud why the author chose "denser" rather than "more dense" which led me here.
>
> There are some great cases in this discussion for "denser", such as "more thick" and "more soft", but I think the above post nailed it with "Often the choice between the old and the new type depends merely on the agreeableness of sound..."
>
> It seems to me that we've (I attended elementary/grammar school in the mid-1980s) been conditioned by our texts to think that "more dense" sounded better. I am beginning to change my mind, however.
the mid '80s. Then the question would by why the textbooks changed.
However, "more dense" doesn't seem to have any increasing trend in
books.
http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=denser%2Cmore+dense&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
> So is there a steadfast rule involved?
>
> Why can something can be "more recent" but not "recenter"?
>
> Also, it appears that just as continued use of slang changes the meaning of a word from the prior generations definition (sick, tight, boss etc.) to an entirely different one amongst the current generation,
me they missed class because they were sick or because the boss made
them work overtime, or they can't use some piece of lab equipment
because it's screwed on too tight.
By the way, the OED has citations for "boss" meaning "best, champion"
since 1836 and meaning "excellent" since 1961 (though it can be hard
to tell the difference between those senses), if that's the new
meaning you're talking about.
> so can it change the more widely accepted use of a word/phrase such as more vs -er.
linguists have said that (almost) all language change comes from
children.
--
Jerry Friedman
Guy Barry
"Curlytop" wrote in message news:k4sph9$ou6$1...@dont-email.me...
> There's "curiouser and curiouser", preserved by Lewis Carroll.
" 'Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that
for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English). "
Lewis Carroll was being deliberately playful here. There's no suggestion
that the form "curiouser" was ever used outside that quote.
--
Guy Barry
CDB
> On Oct 7, 9:50 am, sanders.mar...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Tuesday, October 12, 2010 11:09:12 PM UTC-7, Eric Walker wrote:
>>> On Mon, 11 Oct 2010 20:05:08 -0700, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>>>> Fourteen of my students took a test with a question about floating
>>>> higher in salt water than fresh. Eight of them used a comparative of
>>>> "dense" in their answer. Of these, all used "more dense". This struck
>>>> me as strange--I'd use "denser". Is it generational? (Though one of
>>>> the students looks older than me.) Maybe regional? What would you use?
>>>> By the way, none of the answers contrasted "more dense" with "less
>>>> dense", which would be about the only time I might use "more dense".
>>> Curme observes that the terminational comparative "was universal in Old
>>> English, but it is now confined to words of one syllable and a large
>>> number of words of two syllables . . . . Some adjectives which take -er
>>> and -est may also take 'more' and 'most', the simple form before the noun
>>> with classifying force, the form with 'more' and 'most' after the noun
>>> with descriptive force." He gives as examples:
>>> There never was a kinder and juster man."
>>> There never was a man more kind and just.
>>> He further adds that "Often the choice between the old and the new type
>>> depends merely on the agreeableness of sound, so that there is much
>>> variation in expression here."
>>> I imagine that last covers it best.
> I attended it in the 60s and 70s, so I wouldn't know what happened in
> the mid '80s. Then the question would by why the textbooks changed.
> However, "more dense" doesn't seem to have any increasing trend in
> books.
> http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=denser%2Cmore+dense&
year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=0&smoothing=3
analytic form is used more often now. One context it often appears in
is the compound adjective: "more well-dressed". But "most likely to
succeed" has been around for a while. I blame the Most Happy Fella.
[...]
Guinea Pig
> > Fourteen of my students took a test with a question about floating
> > higher in salt water than fresh. Eight of them used a comparative of
> > "dense" in their answer. Of these, all used "more dense". This
> > struck me as strange--I'd use "denser". Is it generational? (Though
> > one of the students looks older than me.) Maybe regional? What would
> > you use?
> >
> > By the way, none of the answers contrasted "more dense" with "less
> > dense", which would be about the only time I might use "more dense".
> >
> > Jerry Friedman
>
> I would use the word denser, and I am 14. So I doubt it's generational haha. But you never know. I live in North America near the Rocky Mountains, maybe that has something to do with it? My friends and I argued about it because they say "more dense", and I say "denser". I knew it was a word because I just knew it, like it made sense, fathom? That's how I ended up here in the first place, I wanted to know if anyone else says "denser".
Harrison Hill
and you wouldn't say "impossibler" - even if you were commenting on
an 8 year old thread.
Athel Cornish-Bowden
In what sense are they "like" one another?
--
athel
Harrison Hill
Harrison Hill
be "intenser"? No.
Suppose something was "immense". Would something a bit bigger be
"immenser"? No.
Dense has the same immense intense.
Athel Cornish-Bowden
> Suppose something was "immense". Would something a bit bigger be
> "immenser"? No.
Google's counts cannot be trusted,but anyway there are plenty of
examples, such as
There might be, too, a change immenser than
A poet's metaphors in which being would
Come true,
> Dense has the same immense intense.
--
athel
Peter Duncanson [BrE]
"Page 45 of about 446 results"
After Page 1 the majority of the results appear to be German rather than
English.
>
>There might be, too, a change immenser than
>A poet's metaphors in which being would
>Come true,
>>
>> Dense has the same immense intense.
>
>Another peculiar statement: what does it mean?
--
(in alt.usage.english)
Madrigal Gurneyhalt
> Suppose something was "immense". Would something a bit bigger be
> "immenser"? No.
> Dense has the same immense intense.
I have no idea. I presume you don't object to the word 'condenser'
(a thing that condenses) so I can see no reason to reject 'denser'
as matter of pronunciation. Clearly there's no grammatical
reason to reject the -er ending for a comparative on any
adjective.
John Dunlop
> Trudging to the last Google page for "immense" it says "Page 45 of
> about 446 results"
>
> After Page 1 the majority of the results appear to be German rather
> than English.
"immenser", in a rather literary style:
And with them, or after them, may there not come that
even bolder adventurer—the first geolinguist, who,
ignoring the delicate, transient lyrics of the lichen,
will read beneath it the still less communicative, still
more passive, wholly atemporal, cold, volcanic poetry of
the rocks: each one a word spoken, how long ago, by the
earth itself, in the immense solitude, the immenser
community, of space.
http://interconnected.org/home/more/2007/03/acacia-seeds.html
More English examples can be found among the German ones at Google
Books. They also appear to be in poetic or literary styles.
--
John
John Dunlop
> The Corpus of Global Web-Based English has a single occurrence of
> "immenser", in a rather literary style:
>
> And with them, or after them, may there not come that
> even bolder adventurer—the first geolinguist, who,
> ignoring the delicate, transient lyrics of the lichen,
> will read beneath it the still less communicative, still
> more passive, wholly atemporal, cold, volcanic poetry of
> the rocks: each one a word spoken, how long ago, by the
> earth itself, in the immense solitude, the immenser
> community, of space.
>
> http://interconnected.org/home/more/2007/03/acacia-seeds.html
titled "The Author of the Acacia Seeds And Other Extracts from the
Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics".
--
John
Harrison Hill
"lighter" and "tighter" are fine. You wouldn't go or be "righter"?
"More right" surely?
hideouser?
valuabler?
autocraticker?
bafflinger?
"My sausage is sausage-shaped-er than yours".
Madrigal Gurneyhalt
language ('betterer' is a favourite of mine). But that you can
doesn't mean that you should.
'Righter' is an interesting one because there's no obvious reason
for rejecting it given that, as a noun, 'righter' is unexceptional.
It may of course be that we're just not comfortable with the
comparative of an absolutist term in the first place. Can you
really be 'more right' (in either of the two principle senses)?
Madrigal Gurneyhalt
chocolate, stat!!!!
Jerry Friedman
> On Monday, October 11, 2010 at 9:05:08 PM UTC-6, Jerry Friedman wrote:
>> Fourteen of my students took a test with a question about floating
>> higher in salt water than fresh. Eight of them used a comparative of
>> "dense" in their answer. Of these, all used "more dense". This
>> struck me as strange--I'd use "denser". Is it generational? (Though
>> one of the students looks older than me.) Maybe regional? What would
>> you use?
>>
>> By the way, none of the answers contrasted "more dense" with "less
>> dense", which would be about the only time I might use "more dense".
>>
>> --
>> Jerry Friedman
>
> I would use the word denser, and I am 14. So I doubt it's generational haha. But you never know.
giving me the information.
> I live in North America near the Rocky Mountains, maybe that has something to do with it?
> My friends and I argued about it because they say "more dense", and I say "denser".
not "denser".
> I knew it was a word because I just knew it, like it made sense, fathom?
me if I fathom? (Actually, I suspect that's a bit of creativity on your
part.)
> That's how I ended up here in the first place, I wanted to know if anyone else says "denser".
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=denser%2Cmore+dense&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cdenser%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cmore%20dense%3B%2Cc0
http://bit.ly/2IpmV3p
You can also look at corpora, such as the Corpus of Contemporary
American English:
denser: 760
more dense: 117
https://corpus.byu.edu/coca/
That also has a lot of formal English in it. Here's the Global
Web-based Corpus:
denser: 1703 (U.S. and Canada: 582)
more dense: 512: (U.S. and Canada: 193)
https://corpus.byu.edu/glowbe/
Less formal, more more dense. I think the more dense people might be
taking over.
--
Jerry Friedman
bebe...@aol.com
adjectives ending in <y>, <ow>,<er> or <le> (e.g. "pretty", "narrow", "clever",
"gentle") are considered "short", so that the comparative is then with the suffix
-er. The rule seems to work in most cases.
> I presume you don't object to the word 'condenser'
> (a thing that condenses) so I can see no reason to reject 'denser'
> as matter of pronunciation. Clearly there's no grammatical
> reason to reject the -er ending for a comparative on any
> adjective.
for the above) and more, the comparative is with "more" -- so that one should
say "more intense" rather than "intenser". Again, the rule seems to be widely
followed.
Madrigal Gurneyhalt
> > I presume you don't object to the word 'condenser'
> > (a thing that condenses) so I can see no reason to reject 'denser'
> > as matter of pronunciation. Clearly there's no grammatical
> > reason to reject the -er ending for a comparative on any
> > adjective.
>
> Yet the same rule provides that for "long" adjectives, i.e. of 2 syllables (except
> for the above) and more, the comparative is with "more" -- so that one should
> say "more intense" rather than "intenser". Again, the rule seems to be widely
> followed.
exceptions than you do compliant examples or at least enough to
make the rule seem like a net with a very wide mesh. The truth is
that native speakers really don't benefit from rules where their
natural instinct for the language is more than sufficient guide. Try
tying your shoelaces while consciously thinking about every step and
you'll get some idea of the deleterious effects of concentrating on
compliance to rules instead of simply communicating in 'natural'
English.
Default User
> On Wednesday, 14 March 2018 11:42:43 UTC, Harrison Hill wrote:
> > "More right" surely?
> >
> > hideouser?
> > valuabler?
> > autocraticker?
> > bafflinger?
> > "My sausage is sausage-shaped-er than yours".
>
> Yes, on any adjective. Especially in playful or extremely informal
> language ('betterer' is a favourite of mine). But that you can
> doesn't mean that you should.
Brian
Katy Jennison
picture of a secretary-bird wearing glasses and the words "I am eruditer
than you".
I used it too, for carefully-chosen recipients.
--
Katy Jennison
J. J. Lodder
Jan
Snidely
2:34:22 PM
"This tournament has gotten intenser", said the fencer.
/dps
--
"I'm glad unicorns don't ever need upgrades."
"We are as up as it is possible to get graded!"
_Phoebe and Her Unicorn_, 2016.05.15
Janet
says...
> Default User is guilty of <p8c4gu$lq$1...@dont-email.me> as of 3/14/2018
> 2:34:22 PM
> > Madrigal Gurneyhalt wrote:
> >
> >> On Wednesday, 14 March 2018 11:42:43 UTC, Harrison Hill wrote:
> >
> >>> On any adjective? I accept this is rather arbitrary; but
> >>> "lighter" and "tighter" are fine. You wouldn't go or be "righter"?
> >>> "More right" surely?
> >>>
> >>> hideouser?
> >>> valuabler?
> >>> autocraticker?
> >>> bafflinger?
> >>> "My sausage is sausage-shaped-er than yours".
> >>
> >> Yes, on any adjective. Especially in playful or extremely informal
> >> language ('betterer' is a favourite of mine). But that you can
> >> doesn't mean that you should.
> >
> > "Tenser, said the Tensor."
>
> "Oak is a denser wood than balsa", said Spenser
Janet.
Jerry Friedman
> Default User is guilty of <p8c4gu$lq$1...@dont-email.me> as of 3/14/2018
> 2:34:22 PM
>> Madrigal Gurneyhalt wrote:
>>
>>> On Wednesday, 14 March 2018 11:42:43 UTC, Harrison Hill wrote:
>>>> On any adjective? I accept this is rather arbitrary; but
>>>> "lighter" and "tighter" are fine. You wouldn't go or be "righter"?
>>>> "More right" surely?
>>>> hideouser?
>>>> valuabler?
>>>> autocraticker?
>>>> bafflinger?
>>>> "My sausage is sausage-shaped-er than yours".
>>>
>>> Yes, on any adjective. Especially in playful or extremely informal
>>> language ('betterer' is a favourite of mine). But that you can
>>> doesn't mean that you should.
>>
>> "Tenser, said the Tensor."
>
> "Oak is a denser wood than balsa", said Spenser
>
> "This tournament has gotten intenser", said the fencer.
--
Jerry Friedman
Harrison Hill
Quinn C
> I think the more dense people might be
> taking over.
--
Are you sure your sanity chip is fully screwed in?
-- Kryten to Rimmer (Red Dwarf)