[Ads-l] "best-known" avoidance

[Jonathan Lighter]

Cf. too:

Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant is certainly more well-made and written than any
of those Jarhead sequels.

https://collider.com/guy-ritchies-the-covenant-review/

JL

On Thu, May 30, 2024 at 7:08 AM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The "unitary expression" idea makes sense to me.
>
> JL
>
> On Wed, May 29, 2024 at 8:58 PM Stanton McCandlish <smccandlish at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I did that yesterday! It was in a Facebook comment. On a re-read, it
>> glared
>> out at me, so I edited the post to change "most well" to "best".
>>
>> I think it happens from reflexively treating adjectival "well-dressed",
>> "well-known", etc. as unitary expressions, to then modify as units by
>> adding other modifiers like "most", "less", "somewhat", etc., rather than
>> changing the already-embedded "well[-]" (or "poorly" or "badly" or
>> whatever) modifier.
>>
>>
>> On Wed, May 29, 2024 at 2:51 PM Nancy Friedman <wordworking at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Not just “most well known”: I've also seen “most well preserved,” “most
>> > well designed,” and even “most well dressed.”
>> >
>> > Nancy Friedman
>> > Chief Wordworker
>> > https://wordworking.com
>> > https://fritinancy.substack.com
>> >
>> > tel 510 652-4159
>> > cel 510 304-3953
>> > twitter/mastodon/instagram/bluesky/Threads @Fritinancy
>> >
>> > On Wed, May 29, 2024, 12:52 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com
>> >
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > > For several years (five? ten? more?) I've been noticing that cable
>> news
>> > > people have conspicuously dropped "best-known" in favor of the
>> > pointlessly
>> > > extended "most well-known."
>> > >
>> > > Weird hypercorrection?  Or what?
>> > >
>> > > OED has "best-known," without comment, from 1541.
>> > >
>> > > JL
>> > >
>> > > --
>> > > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
>> > truth."
>> > >
>> > > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> > >
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------
>> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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