Gradations of adjectives ending in -er

[tjh290633]

More better can only compare two beers. So , of all the beers available ,which is the most bestest. If you have a double comparative then there must be a double superlative.

No, you have better, better than that and best of all.

TJH

[UncleEbenezer]

More better can only compare two beers. So , of all the beers available ,which is the most bestest. If you have a double comparative then there must be a double superlative.

No, you have better, better than that and best of all.

TJH

It ain't that simple. There is no best beer in the abstract, only the best-suited to the time, mood, and occasion!

[servodude]

You're mixing your drinks there. You don't use a still for beer, no matter how muchly betterer it is!

But you can use a still to turn this,
"OSCAR WILDE 3.7% abv dark mild
Dark and delicious award winning mild. Mellow, nutty and moreish."
https://www.mightyoakbrewing.co.uk/product/oscar-wilde/
Into this,
"WILDE SPIRIT 40% abv SINGLE MALT SPIRIT
Distilled from the award winning Oscar Wilde mild."
https://www.mightyoakbrewing.co.uk/product/wilde-spirit/


Julian F. G. W.

Yeah beer is quite common as a spirit base even for gin (I know it's bought in by a couple of small local makers rather than brew it themselves)

Is Belhaven Best the best Best or is there a better Best?

[DrFfybes]

Yeah beer is quite common as a spirit base even for gin (I know it's bought in by a couple of small local makers rather than brew it themselves)

Is Belhaven Best the best Best or is there a better Best?

I gather Tenants is Super, although Oxtail is Souperer

[stewamax]

I'm anticipating an intervention from that nice Mr Poe any second now...

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore".

[UncleEbenezer]

I'm anticipating an intervention from that nice Mr Poe any second now...

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore".

Ah, but is the Raven better, when you add an extra letter?
when the meter free is flowing, yet the reader yearns for more!
Making life for us exciting, our Corvidian verse reciting,
Can we truly quibble over some perceived linguistic flaw?
Surely, were it pedant knocking on the poet's chamber door,
We'd have Raven, nevermore?

(c) Edgarnezer McGonagall Poe

[Mike4]

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore".

Ah, but is the Raven better, when you add an extra letter?
when the meter free is flowing, yet the reader yearns for more!
Making life for us exciting, our Corvidian verse reciting,
Can we truly quibble over some perceived linguistic flaw?
Surely, were it pedant knocking on the poet's chamber door,
We'd have Raven, nevermore?

(c) Edgarnezer McGonagall Poe

And there was me thinking you'd instructed "Bard" to write a poem about this!


OB joke:
Shakespeare walks into a pub and orders a pint of best bitter. The landlord says "Sorry no. You're barred"

Oh sorry, this isn't Jokers' Corner....

[UncleEbenezer]

And there was me thinking you'd instructed "Bard" to write a poem about this!

Heh.

Ok, you've piqued my curiosity. How would you have gone about formulating a request to Bard to write that?

It's actually very easy to mimic Poe's rhyme scheme and meter if you're prepared to sacrifice sense.

BTW, that poem has defeated me several times attempting to set it to music. It imposes itself too strongly for the prospective music to add value. Maybe it would work if spoken to a soundtrack, in the manner of Facade or Banana Blush?

[Arborbridge]

Or using a question mark in lieu of a full stop.

I was sorely tempted to comment on that too, but felt it would dilute the impact of my answer to the (implied) question.


But the thing that really gets my goat is people ending a statement with a question mark?

Why do they do that.

I believe that suggests they have no confidence in their statement, or are hinting they would like confirmation from the reader or listener. One often hears this question mark ending in quiz shows when the contestant isn't sure about the answer.

It's also possibly a visual occurrence of the Australian Question Mark intonation. (?)

[DrFfybes]

OB joke:
Shakespeare walks into a pub and orders a pint of best bitter. The landlord says "Sorry no. You're barred"

Oh sorry, this isn't Jokers' Corner....

In this case I don't think the wrong board was the problem.

[Mike4]

And there was me thinking you'd instructed "Bard" to write a poem about this!

Heh.


Ok, you've piqued my curiosity. How would you have gone about formulating a request to Bard to write that?

It's actually very easy to mimic Poe's rhyme scheme and meter if you're prepared to sacrifice sense.

BTW, that poem has defeated me several times attempting to set it to music. It imposes itself too strongly for the prospective music to add value. Maybe it would work if spoken to a soundtrack, in the manner of Facade or Banana Blush?

You're doing a different Poe! I was referring to Nathan Poe, who ain't no poet.

Curious how few people seem to say "ain't" no more. My peers when I was a brat at primary skool was always bein told off for sayin it.

[UncleEbenezer]

You're doing a different Poe! I was referring to Nathan Poe, who ain't no poet.

Never 'eard of 'im - though I did think it a little implausible that your reference was the man of such troubled letters. It was another poster introducing the Raven up to whom I followed.

[UncleEbenezer]

Curious how few people seem to say "ain't" no more. My peers when I was a brat at primary skool was always bein told off for sayin it.

Ain't nuffink to see! My inner pedant cringed at the double-negative.

I had a vague impression there was an element of regional slang about ain't. So it was moving through space as much as through time that cleared my ears of it.

Do you still live where you grew up?

[edit] On second thoughts, scrub that. Thinking historic/literary references, the second one that springs to mind comes from Catfish Row.

[Mike4]

Curious how few people seem to say "ain't" no more. My peers when I was a brat at primary skool was always bein told off for sayin it.

Ain't nuffink to see! My inner pedant cringed at the double-negative.

I had a vague impression there was an element of regional slang about ain't. So it was moving through space as much as through time that cleared my ears of it.

Do you still live where you grew up?

No, I grewed up in Ashford, west London. My dad was a genuine Cockney as in born within the sound of Bow bells, but spent his first 30 years in Hayes. "Ain't" was a commonly used word amongst my childhood peers and I've an idea it is a Cockney word. But the etymology and the apostrophe in particular puzzles me. Slang doesn't usually contain punctuation so maybe it has more formal roots.

I might even be driven to goggle it!!

[ReformedCharacter]

No, I grewed up in Ashford, west London. My dad was a genuine Cockney as in born within the sound of Bow bells, but spent his first 30 years in Hayes. "Ain't" was a commonly used word amongst my childhood peers and I've an idea it is a Cockney word. But the etymology and the apostrophe in particular puzzles me. Slang doesn't usually contain punctuation so maybe it has more formal roots.

I might even be driven to goggle it!!

Looks like you're right about the Cockney connection:

According to Etymology Online, the term was first attested in 1706 meaning am not, and it was used with that sense until the early 19th century, when it began to be used as a generic contraction for are not, is not, etc. in the Cockney dialect. It was then "popularized by representations of this in Dickens, etc., which led to the word being banished from correct English."

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ain%27t

RC

[tjh290633]

Curious how few people seem to say "ain't" no more. My peers when I was a brat at primary skool was always bein told off for sayin it.

Ain't nuffink to see! My inner pedant cringed at the double-negative.

I had a vague impression there was an element of regional slang about ain't. So it was moving through space as much as through time that cleared my ears of it.

Do you still live where you grew up?

[edit] On second thoughts, scrub that. Thinking historic/literary references, the second one that springs to mind comes from Catfish Row.

"Ain't" doesn't feature in the dialect of the Forest of Dean. More likely to hear "byunt", derived from "be not".

TJH

[bungeejumper]

You're doing a different Poe! I was referring to Nathan Poe, who ain't no poet.

And there was I, thinking you were talking about the Poe multichatbot. (http://www.poe.com). Which, for just twenty quid a month, will write you a poem such as this classical gem:

In ancient Rome's sprawling domain,
Emperors sought power to maintain.
From Caesar to Nero,
Their reigns were a show,
Till the empire's decline was ordained.

There, I feel better already. AI is definitely crap at poetry. Doesn't do scansion, doesn't do rhyme properly, doesn't seem to understand the idea of the thing at all. This is poetry like Les Dawson's piano playing. But less amusing, because at least he was being bad intentionally. Verse and verse, and then verserer.

BJ

[stewamax]

Poe's narrator (in The Raven) was clearly haunted by adjectives ending in -er:

"Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore,
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

And since this is Pedants' Place, I can add that text like this in The Raven that reaches a crescendo thus:

Caught from some unhappy master | whom unmerciful Disaster | Followed fast and followed faster

is using a mix of the welsh 'cynghanedd sain' rhyming and the Old English 'A A | A' alliteration used by Langland in Piers Plowman

As UncleEbenezer - at least I think it was him! - has commented, the overall 'trochaic octameter plus a short line' metre used is difficult to set a song to or even to parody. Tennyson's Locksley Hall used trochaic octameters, and Locksley Hall was in turn parodied by William Bromley Davenport's foxhunting morality tale Lowesby Hall

[UncleEbenezer]

Poe's narrator (in The Raven) was clearly haunted by adjectives ending in -er:

"Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster
Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore—
Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore,
Of ‘Never—nevermore’.”

You may be reading too mucher into that (though I have to admit you've caught out my defective parody - touché. And I could so easily have reworded it). That rhyme scheme (two syllables, not just the weak syllable you highlight) is used throughout: it's a part of what gives the poem its drive. Lines 3 and 4 of each verse.

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

Eagerly I wished the morrow;—vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow—sorrow for the lost Lenore

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating
“’Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door

etc.

Note: the "-or" syllable at the end of line 4 runs through lines 2,4,5 and 6 of every verse (including my mimic above). Only lines 1 and 3 use different syllables from verse to verse in their internal rhymes. A very tight scheme!

And since this is Pedants' Place, I can add that text like this in The Raven that reaches a crescendo thus:

And since this is Pedant's Place, I must deplore your horrible misuse of the word "crescendo". Not to mention both our misuse of "And since" to begin a sentence!

Caught from some unhappy master | whom unmerciful Disaster | Followed fast and followed faster

is using a mix of the welsh 'cynghanedd sain' rhyming and the Old English 'A A | A' alliteration used by Langland in Piers Plowman

Hmmm. I don't think the alliteration is really a feature: it's not at all part of that strong pattern repeated across every verse. Though of course it's widely used in many Germanic and Nordic, as well as Old English traditions.

As UncleEbenezer - at least I think it was him! - has commented, the overall 'trochaic octameter plus a short line' metre used is difficult to set a song to or even to parody. Tennyson's Locksley Hall used trochaic octameters, and Locksley Hall was in turn parodied by William Bromley Davenport's foxhunting morality tale Lowesby Hall

I may very well have commented something to that effect. Even Beethoven sounds very four-square when he set Schiller's trochaic tetrameter, and in the hands of a lesser composer (like me) it would just become boring. Which makes Coleridge-Taylor's setting of Longfellow all the more impressive!

[stewamax]

And since this is Pedant's Place, I must deplore your horrible misuse of the word "crescendo". Not to mention both our misuse of "And since" to begin a sentence!

Crescendo? Mea culpa, but I couldn't think of a more appropriate word.
And I still can't (yip - starts with 'and').

My original point was that Poe and others use rhyme and alliteration to achieve the progressively more intense gradable adjectives ('big - bigger - more bigger - biggest - most biggest - ...' ) that our largely analytic English with simple comparatives and superlatives shuns.
The more synthetic languages such as OE and other Germanic languages - and Latin - may have a wider range of gradations using a combination of inflections and comparatives.
We might have had a richer language if we hadn't lost most inflections by needing to trade with the Old Norse speakers in the Danelaw.
I would also like to blame the French. I'm not sure what for, but would still like to blame them.