| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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Page 3
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| The rules for spelling changes of compared adjectives are treated under Word Formation. | 1 |
English also has a few adjectives whose comparative and superlative forms are irregular:
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Positive
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Comparative
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Superlative
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good |
better |
best |
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bad |
worse |
worst |
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little |
littler, less |
littlest, least |
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far |
farther, further |
farthest, furthest |
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| 2 |
| You can also compare adjectives in a decreasing way by using less and least: Jack is less skillful at carpentry than Bill is. Roberta is the least likely employee to have complained about working conditions. | 3 |
| There are also some adjectives, like acoustic, biological, and reverse, that cannot be compared and others, like unique, parallel, and perfect, whose comparison is controversial. | 4 |
| More at
absolute terms. | 5 |
adverbs, comparison of
| Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, and sometimes entire clauses or sentences. Many adjectives can be made into adverbs by adding the suffix -ly:
| | We made a conservative estimate of the costs.
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| | We estimated the costs conservatively.
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The monosyllabic adjectives fast, hard, and long do not change to form adverbs:
| | He is a fast runner. He runs fast.
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| | She is a hard worker. She works hard.
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| | We waited for a long time. Have you been waiting long?
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Some adjectives, like close and high, have two adverbial forms: one that is unchanged and one that ends in -ly.
| | We are close friends. Stay close to me. Look closely at the first chapter.
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| | The platform is high. The bird flew high. The artist was highly praised.
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| It is best to check a dictionary to be confirm the forms used by a specific adverb. | 9 |
Similar rules to those for comparing adjectives apply to adverbs and are shown in the chart below:
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Number of Syllables
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Unchanged
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Comparative
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Superlative
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soon |
sooner |
soonest |
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2 or more |
early |
earlier |
earliest |
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frequent |
more frequent |
most frequent |
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comfortably |
more comfortably |
most comfortably |
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| 10 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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