Timeline for "Much more easy" versus "much easier"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 24, 2012 at 14:50 | comment | added | John Lawler | /əl/ is also a resonant like /ər/; they act in many of the same ways and even dissimilate with one another. | |
| May 24, 2012 at 3:38 | comment | added | Peter Shor | The words purpler, littler, suppler, gentler still end up being two syllables after the suffix; presumably this makes them more acceptable. | |
| May 17, 2012 at 15:55 | comment | added | John Lawler | That's a different -er morpheme, with different morphology. My guess is that final /ər/, being a resonant like the /w/ and /y/ at the end of /i/ and /o/, can take the suffix. Similarly, purpler is not as bad as it ought to be. | |
| May 17, 2012 at 15:36 | comment | added | Andrew Leach♦ | "tenderer" and "tenderest" are just about ok, and are used (perhaps rarely, admittedly) -- probably because "tenderer" is a noun as well. | |
| May 17, 2012 at 14:24 | comment | added | John Lawler | Different people have different preferences, and variations; the rhythm of much more easy might appeal to some, in some contexts, more than the rhythm of much easier. Or vice versa. This is a grey area, as Neil points out above. | |
| May 17, 2012 at 14:12 | comment | added | James Waldby - jwpat7 | Does "much" out front make a difference? Eg one might usually prefer "easier" to "more easy" but still prefer "much more easy" to "much easier". | |
| May 17, 2012 at 13:27 | comment | added | John Lawler | That's pretty much true of all inflections in English. Syntax has got momentum in English; we're in the power stroke of the Grammaticalization Cycle. | |
| May 17, 2012 at 4:12 | comment | added | Neil Coffey | There appears to be a change underway, though, whereby the analytic comparative is gradually gaining ground generally, e.g. "colder" > "more cold". | |
| May 17, 2012 at 2:59 | history | answered | John Lawler | CC BY-SA 3.0 |