Sunday, April 21, 2013

As assault on superlatives

I know I've talked about superlatives before, but really, Grammarly, a popular editing and proofreading company with a large following and active presence on Facebook,  committed one of my biggest pet peeves the other day.  They used the term "more clear" instead of "clearer."  There are really easy rules to follow regarding superlatives, as this little lesson demonstrates: http://www.learnenglish.de/grammar/adjectivesuper.htm.  In common usage these days, I hear a lot of people using "most something" when it should be the -er or -est suffix to the root word.  It drives me bananas whenever I hear it, and what bugs me more is that I catch myself doing sometimes because I keep hearing it!