There are other, more important objections to the new campaign ads from the President. Still, it annoys me to see such a basic grammatical error as using the wrong comparative form of the adjective free. The President speaks of our being more free and more peaceful.. What he should have said is freer and more peaceful.
If he is going to tell a lie about greater freedom, and if he is going to demand higher standards in education, at least he should pay attention to his wording.
I think it’s a fundamental mistake to try to analyse Bush as if he were someone who would or should be ashamed of things he does or says.
Once you accept that Bush is basically a confidence-artist, the things he does and says make more sense. His sole aim is to appear convincing to Joe Six-Pack, Julie Hairdresser and Mary-Jo Religousfruitcake.
You know, “freer” just doesn’t sound right to me. I’m not saying it isn’t right, but it sounds very awkward. “More free” isn’t great, either, but it feels more natural to me.
I’m not normally in the habit of defending Bush’s grammar, but I really don’t see anything wrong here: surely “more something” is normally completely correct, even if it would be conciser to use an “-er” form. That’s what ‘more’ means. You could make the argument that ‘freer’ would sound better here, but I disagree: using ‘more’ corresponds to using ‘more’ with ‘peaceful’ making the whole clearer and more impactful.
Doesn’t “more free and more peaceful” carry more punch than “more free and peaceful” or “freer and more peacefull”? Personally I’d be tempted by “freer and peacefuller” but I agree that’d be twisting the language
Well, Bryan Garner, in A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, notes that many comparatives and superlatives can be formed both “by adding the suffixes -er and -est” and by “using the additional words more and most.” He notes that, for words that can be modified both ways, “the choice in any given context depends largely on euphony.”
He goes on to add:
It seems that enough people believe that freer isn’t as euphonous as more free.
I’ll slam GWB any day of the week, and i even own a t-shirt that takes the piss out of his grammar, but i think i’ll give him a pass on this one.
Goddamnit quit saying that. There must be hundreds of thousands of Texas Democrats out here saying this. I expect you to go to the polls next Tuesday and in November. A vote for Martin Frost is a vote for shoving the redistricting up the GOPs ass.
