Least likely to succeed?

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 11:39 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Old Spice has been saturating the airwaves during the NCAA basketball
> tournament with its commercials promoting its product by introducing
> their own brand-new superduperlative:
>
> "Fresh, fresher, freshest, freshershest"
>
> Yes, "freshershest", although the web hits on it seem to prefer
> "freshershist", which doesn't efen look like a superlative:
> http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/march/fresh-fresher-freshest-freshershist
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CDmPf4a8I4

Reminiscent of the pleonastic comparatives in this T-Mobile/Google
Android ad ("smarterer", "funnerer"):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZHgZr3SXCA

(Which in turn is reminiscent of the unnecessary movie sequel, "Dumb
and Dumberer.")


--Ben Zimmer

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