"the most clutch" (adjectival phrase)

[Laurence Horn]

Well, it's all relative, but the first page of hits on "how clutch is (X)" contains examples where X = Lebron James, Robert Horry, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Durant (all basketball), Mike Rupp (hockey), A-Rod (baseball), Drew Brees and Mark Sanchez (football), and a parking spot in the rain.  All seemed natural (although varying in whether they presupposed a positive answer, a negative answer, or neither).  I didn't check the other (purportedly) 46,000 or so raw g-hits, but I don't agree that this is a rare construction.

LH

On Dec 19, 2011, at 5:45 PM, Victor Steinbok wrote:

> Although I'm quite certain that I've heard "most clutch" before--largely
> under similar circumstances (e.g., "most clutch performance"), most of
> the stuff mentioned by Ron is virtually never described in the manner he
> suggests. When talking about clutch hitting, we get "better clutch
> hitter" or "better hitter in the clutch", either way modifying "hitter",
> not "clutch". If the degree of clutchness was more common, we hear more
> "more clutch hitter" instead. But we don't. It's still rare. So is, "How
> clutch is that hit?!"
>
> VS-)
>
> On 12/19/2011 4:10 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>> On Dec 19, 2011, at 3:55 PM, Ron Butters wrote:
>>
>>> It so rarely appears as a bare noun (except as the object of the preposition "in") that one can scarcely classify it as a full-fledged noun, either, but rather as an adjective like "dead" that does not so easily allow comparative forms.
>> Well, I'd argue that degrees of clutchness (e.g. hitting .400 vs. .300 in late inning situations with runners on base, successfully kicking 90% vs. 75% of one's field goal attempts in the fourth quarter to tie the game or give your team the lead) are a lot more easily defined than degrees of deadness, "deader than a doornail" notwithstanding.
>>
>>> "How clutch is he as a player?" sounds as good to me as the quoted example.
>> Exactly as good.  This is precisely the pattern of adjectivistic "fun", except for the synthetic vs. analytic nature of the compared forms:  How fun is it?  It seems fun.  That was the funnest ride.  (Granted, the last of these seems a bit…jejune.)
>>
>> LH
>
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