basketball --- (blend?)

[ronbutters at AOL.COM]

Of course the adjective "big" has a superlative form. And surely one could argue that one shot of a group of shots was the "biggest." That bit of obvious linguistic information Is totally irrelevant to the interpretation of the statement under discussion, so what is the point of talking about it?

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 21, 2011, at 1:34 PM, "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET> wrote:

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

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