[Ads-l] meaner

[Ben Zimmer]

Arnold Zwicky and I have both written about uncertainty around particular
"-er" and "-est" forms -- sometimes they sound "wrong" to people for
unspecified reasons, inducing linguistic anxiety.

Two Language Log posts from me (in 2006):
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003271.html
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003794.html

And two from Arnold (in 2009):
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1920
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1923


On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 4:32 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Nicolle Wallace, MSNBC, highly educated news anchor, novelist, and former
> communications director for G. W. Bush:
>
> "He did write the word 'meaner,' which I'm not even [sure is a real word] -
> I think it's 'more mean,' but I'm not a grammarian."
>
>
>

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