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<font size=3>At 1/21/2011 11:49 AM, ronbutters@AOL.COM wrote:<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite="">Why must there be three kinds if
there are only two? Or if there are three the biggest are in a subset of
the bigger.</font></blockquote><br>
Shouldn't every adjective ("ordinary") have both a comparative
("bigger") and a superlative (what?)? Surely the modest
and decorous stars of the NBA do not neglect the superlative.
Surely the "biggest" shots are bigger, badder, and better than
the "bigger".<br><br>
Joel<br><br>
<br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><font size=3>Sent from my
iPad<br><br>
On Jan 21, 2011, at 11:26 AM, "Joel S. Berson"
<Berson@ATT.NET> wrote:<br><br>
> At 1/21/2011 02:52 AM, ronbutters@AOL.COM wrote:<br>
>> "bigger" merely means "(more) important"--cf
"Nobody makes more of<br>
>> the bigger shots." There are two kinds of shots: ordinary
shots and<br>
>> bigger shots.<br>
><br>
> There must be three kinds -- what's the<br>
> superlative? Tallest? Loftiest? Proudest?
Mega-?<br>
><br>
> Joel<br>
><br>
><br>
>> Sent from my iPad<br>
>><br>
>> On Jan 20, 2011, at 10:26 PM, "Cohen, Gerald Leonard"
<gcohen@MST.EDU> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>> > Maybe this is a blend: "Nobody makes bigger shots
than..." and<br>
>> "Nobody makes more big shots than..."<br>
>> > It's not entirely synonymous, but it may be close enough to
have<br>
>> blended in the mind of the speaker.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > Gerald Cohen<br>
>> ><br>
>> > ________________________________<br>
>> ><br>
>> > From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Laurence Horn,
Thu<br>
>> 1/20/2011 8:47 AM<br>
>> ><br>
>> ><br>
>> > At 1:11 AM -0500 1/20/11, Victor Steinbok wrote:<br>
>> >> I can almost understand what the ESPN announcer was
trying to say:<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> "Nobody makes more bigger shots than Chauncy
Billups."<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> "More" and "bigger" are meant to be
parallel, but it doesn't quite work.<br>
>> >> One reading would be [more [bigger shots]], but this
begs for antecedent<br>
>> >> for "bigger"--bigger than what? Another
reading is "more [and] bigger<br>
>> >> shots", but this is also odd. One thing that was
/not/ implied was the<br>
>> >> nonstandard [[more bigger] shots]. The actual
implication might have<br>
>> >> been something like, "No one makes more big shots
/or/ bigger shots than<br>
>> >> Chauncy Billups." In other words, he makes a lot
of very important<br>
>> >> shots. But the hyperbolic got lost somewhere in the
comparative.<br>
>> >><br>
>> >> VS-)<br>
>> >><br>
>> > Yes, these have been discussed somewhere among those
examples of<br>
>> > "Escher sentences" that sound fine until you
start to try to parse<br>
>> > them. Here's a bit of discussion from Language Log on
another<br>
>> > species of this genus:<br>
>> >
<a href="http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000862.html" eudora="autourl">
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000862.html</a><br>
>> > Arnold may be able to locate some discussion in the
literature of the<br>
>> > Janus-scale comparatives like Victor's (or the related
"Nobody makes<br>
>> > bigger shots more often than..."); I remember first
hearing one from<br>
>> > Barbara Partee but I don't know if there's a write-up
anywhere.<br>
>> ><br>
>> > LH<br>
>> ><br>
>> >
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>>
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http://www.americandialect.org/</a>><br>
>> ><br>
>> >
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http://www.americandialect.org</a><br>
>><br>
>>
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