Heard in a TV ad

[Wilson Gray]

I would expect "... much more _comfortable_" instead of "...
comfy-er." The whole thing is giving me the mo' bettuh blues.

-Wilson

On 8/7/07, Arnold M. Zwicky <zwicky at csli.stanford.edu> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Heard in a TV ad
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Aug 7, 2007, at 4:10 PM, Dennis Preston wrote, about "much more
> comfy-er":
>
> > Why's that? more +  adj + er is very well attested in many varieties.
> > What could be more better?
>
> i *think* that speakers with double comparatives have single
> comparatives as well, and use the "more" of the double ones as an
> intensive (so that "much more X-er" would be a particular natural
> combination).  but i haven't worked on the variable myself.
>
> MWDEU notes (under "double comparison") that double comparatives and
> superlatives were used quite a bit in the 14th through 17th centuries
> (Shakespeare, KJV), but then declined precipitously in standard
> writing, at least in part under attack from a slew of grammarians.
>
> (MWDEU also notes a slightly different kind of double comparison, in
> "worser" and "bestest".)
>
> in any case, the usage is alive and healthy as a feature of non-
> standard speech.  are there any systematic studies of the variant?
> (plenty of anecdotes and observations in passing, yes, but systematic
> studies?)
>
> arnold
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org