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Is it correct to say " much more better "? You know the -er ending in better means more already so it seems redundant , "Like saying something twice"

Although I heard it frequently I was wondering if it was correct.

How can i say "much better" with more emphasis?(i know If I'm speaking all i have to do is use the correct tone when i say "much" and it will put more emphasis on it , but I mean in written English ) Are "Way better" and "far better " good alternatives?

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  • It's not "correct" in standard English, but it is fairly common slang to say "more better" (or, quite often, "mo' better"). "Much, much better" and "far better" are "correct" formal alternatives, with "way better" being only slightly informal.
    – Hot Licks
    Aug 16, 2015 at 11:14
  • Much better is already emphatic. Far better and way better seem equally emphatic to me, though the latter is rather informal. If you really need more emphasis, you can repeat the adverb: e.g. much, much better.
    – Anonym
    Aug 16, 2015 at 19:57
  • I think T-Mobile uses this as part of a radio campaign: "There's always more better." In this case, "better" is a noun. T-Mobile achieved "better" and is now going to achieve even "more better".
    – VampDuc
    Aug 17, 2015 at 15:41

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Two intensifiers ("more" + "-er") is considered grammatically incorrect in standard English. You'll find it in some vernaculars, as in Spike Lee's 1990 movie Mo' [i.e., More] Better Blues. For emphasis, use an intensifying modifier. Your suggestions are fine. "Way" is the more informal version of "far and away better."

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Better can be an annoyingly ambiguous word, particularly when referring to recovery from illness. "I'm better" can mean either "I've recovered now", or "I am better than I was before, but not fully recovered yet".

Which is strange. We don't use "I'm best" in the first instance, so need a modifier, which is the kind of thing the question wants.

Natural to me, is much better, which I'd take to mean "fully recovered"; though it still doesn't go all the way. Is there a residual superstition about not claiming to be fully well in case fortune takes its revenge on such gross assumption? Or is it an unvoiced acknowledgement that we can never be "fully well" anyway?

This cautious approach is also seen in the modifier for a degree of recovery: I'm feeling better, which seems to acknowledge that we frail humans might consider something to be so and so, but the gods of reality know better. Much better. Most better.

Incidentally, the proscription against a "double" comparative or superlative (more better; most better) ignores the earlier usage in English, in which "more" and "most" act as intensifiers, adding the emphasis that the question asks for. It's a construction used many times by some of the best known writers of the past ( shakespeareswords.com )

and

"In profane authors there are also many instances of the use of the double superlative. Sir Thomas More used the expression, 'most basest'; Ben Jonson that of, 'most ancientest'; John Lilly (of the time of Queen Elizabeth) that of, 'most brightest'; and Shakespeare, 'most boldest, most unkindest, most heaviest.'" ("On the Language of Uneducated People," The Saturday Magazine, August 24, 1844) - about education

I like this robust forcefulness.

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  • Thanks you for your consideration. I think that i only read it UN Shakespeare and stuff like that . that like was awesome
    – KF2
    Aug 16, 2015 at 11:21
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The final stage of betterness has to be 'all better now', reserved for when there is no more sympathy to be extracted for one's situation, or perhaps when staging a bravely borne ailment and uttered with an affecting sniff.

Almost any adverb of amplitude can go with "better".

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