Quicklier?

[Arnold Zwicky]

a. murie asks
 >Heard on NPR this morning (Jean Cochran, newsreader): [ sthg. being
 >repositioned to move] "quicklier."  (Context reconstructed from
 >memory.)  I can't remember ever hearing "quicklier" before.  Is it
 >standard in some dialect?

as the author of an article entitled "Quicker, more quickly,
*quicklier", I have some interest in the answer to this question.

forms like "quicklier" are certainly not widespread.  they
occasionally occur in speech, as blends or perhaps as avoidances of
adverbial uses of "quick".  but i don't see why the formation couldn't
have established itself in some group of english speakers, as a
generalization of the scope of -er comparison.  (but it's not an
especially likely usage in non-standard varieties of english, almost
all of which are fond of bare-adjective adverbials; in such varieties,
"quicker" is the natural comparative adverbial.)

arnold (zwicky at csli.stanford.edu)