It's Aunt Ruth, the Superlative Super Relative

The mist rose in delicate, feathery wisps, as the solar orb, like a phoenix, began its ascent into the blue dawn on a fine autumnal morning.

It was mistier than it had been a day earlier - in fact it was the mistiest it had been in perhaps a month.

The dawn was bluer than I had seen in a while, and I'd say it was the bluest dawn in weeks.

The delicate, feathery wisps of mist were delicater (buzz!) and featherier (buzz!) than one will usually see, though probably not the delicatest (buzz!) nor featheriest (buzz!) I had ever seen.

Dear author, before I continue my narration, will you please tell me what the buzzing is all about?

Sure, dear narrator. You are using words that aren't really words. I'm buzzing them so the gentle reader will know that these are not really words. I would feel terrible if some kid writing a term paper saw the word delicatest (buzz!) and decided to use it in the paper.

That would be one of the terriblest (buzz!) things ever.

Exactly.

Anyway, outside doing yard work - specifically I was creating a large pile of soft pine straw, for no reason other than the fact that the author wanted me to do this as a literary prop because he said it would be needed in a paragraph or two - I was enjoying the sounds of nature as I labored. One neighbor was using one of those gas powered leaf blowers that looks remarkably like the jet packs that they talked about in the Weekly Reader magazines we would get in grade school when I was a kid; another neighbor, a nineteen year old college kid who was washing, waxing, and waning his 1966 Chevy Camaro as though he were the first guy to have discovered that this was a cool-looking car, had his car stereo blasting "Ina Godda da Vida" as if it were the brand new latest hit that the rest of the world needed to hear; and a third neighbor was playing Texas Chainsaw Massacre with an old dead oak tree that was dropping limbs in his front yard. Ah, now this was a blissful day, blissfuller (buzz!) than the previous day and perhaps the blissfullest (buzz!) day I had ever experienced.

My ears detected a whistle that reminded me of a bomb falling from a fighter plane in a bad World War II movie. I looked up, and sure enough I spied an object plummeting through the skies. Using my uncanny estimating ability - Mom always told me I was uncannier (buzz!) than she and, in fact, that I had the uncanniest (buzz!) estimating ability she had ever seen - and a couple quick calculations, I realized that the falling object was probably going to land right smack in the middle of my backyard, where - fortunately if not fortuitously - Aunt Ruth, the indomitable one, had placed a large trampoline that she had purchased for me only the previous day.

I raced inside the house (isn't it odd that you can race yourself? I guess you would win every time) and found my binoculars - actually, it wasn't easy, as they were buried in the couch right next to my lucky rabbit foot and a half-eaten pastrami sandwich that I had been looking for since the 1997 Super Bowl - and then raced back outside (and won again) and trained them (the binoculars, in case you're lost) on the falling object.

What I saw made my heart leap. An elderly, short but large, woman wearing a blue skin-tight polyester outfit with a red cape was hurtling downward through the atmosphere, probably doing more damage to the environment than the National Hairspray Convention of 1982.

As this astronomical enigma was falling through the friendly skies, I focused (the binoculars) again on this woman in the cape. I won't say that she was fat - I'm not sure that's quite politically correct these days - but she was of such magnitude that she had her own two moons orbiting about her.

She drew closer and I quickly realized that I had messed up on my calculation (pi to ninety decimal places apparently was not enough) and that, indeed, she was going to land in the pine straw pile and not on the trampoline. I forgot about all else, grabbed the pitchfork, and as quickly as I could I built up the pine straw pile.

Ten ... nine ... she was coming down so fast there was a trail of sparks behind her ... eight ... seven ... at this moment she was close enough that I could see the details of her face. Lo and behold and boil my britches, it was Aunt Ruth! Finally, I knew why she had put the trampoline in place. But she must have made the same mistake I did and ended up off by a few feet ... six ... five ... the pine straw pile was up to about twenty feet high by this point ... four ... three ... two ... one ... THWUMP!

Dazed and more than a little confused, Aunt Ruth popped her head out of the pine straw pile and yelled out, "It's a bird; it's very plain; it's Super Relative!"

"Under the guise of Aunt Ruth, who makes her way around Grammar City in search of misused, erroneous, felonious, and bolognious (buzz!) occurrences of grandfathers, grandmothers, grampars, and grammars everywhere, it is I, Sultaness of the Superlative, Czaress of the Comparative, and Queen of the Quintessentialest. Here I am, in all my glory, much gloriouser than yesterday, and perhaps the gloriousest I've been all week."

"What do you mean under the guise of Aunt Ruth? You are Aunt Ruth."

"Yes, I am she to whom you are speaking."

"Since when, oh aunt o'mine (as opposed to aunt-o-mime, which is when a person imitates an aunt without using words), did bolognious become a word?"

"Well nutritious nephew ..." she began, "since when did ..."

"Wait - nutritious?" I interrupted.

"I needed another N adjective and that's all I could think of at the moment."

"Okay, please continue."

"As I was saying, since when did delicate use the comparative and superlative delicater and delicatest, respectively? Ditto for blissful with blissfuller and blissfullest, and uncanny with uncannier and uncanniest?"

"Well okay," I admitted, that was in a moment of laziness and perhaps a bit of humor when I decided to use those non-words."

"Or ... could it be the case that you just don't know your comparatives and superlatives?"

"Or ... it could be the case that I just don't know my comparatives and superlatives."

"I couldn't have said it better myself."

"Now listen Aunt Ruth ... quintessentialist? How about gloriouser and gloriousest?"

"I know, I know, those aren't words. But hey, this might be a good time to actually introduce some rules."

"Well, it would be a good idea, but I don't think I would call them rules, because they're not necessarily hard and fast. There are exceptions."

"Exceptions? In English? Good heavens, who would have thought!" Aunt Ruth broke into a laugh.

"All right, my dear aunt, first let's talk about one syllable words."

"I love one syllable words like dog, cat, fish, and worm."

"I guess I should back up a moment."

"Why, do I smell bad?"

"No, I didn't mean that. There's more to explain before we begin though. Comparatives and superlatives are going to be starting with adjectives, not with nouns."

"What if I have a pet that's a dog, and another pet that's even more a dog, couldn't I say one is dogger than the other?"

"Dogger? Are you serious?"

"Okay, I guess dogger is out. Keep going, nascent nephew."

"Let's talk about one syllable words. If the word ends in a consonant, often the comparative can be formed by doubling the consonant and adding -er at the end; the superlative can be formed by doubling the consonant and adding -est at the end. Aunt Ruth, do you care to try some examples?"

"I'd love to. Some of my favorite examples of this type are: dim, dimmer, dimmest; thin, thinner, thinnest; fat, fatter, fattest; hot, hotter, and hottest."

"Very good, Aunt Ruth."

"Thanks. Now northern nephew, why can't I say funner and funnest as the comparative and superlative for fun?"

"Well this is interesting and it's not as straight forward as you might think it should be. Note that some grammarians really do not care for the use of fun as an attributive adjective, meaning that you should use amusing or enjoyable instead of fun."

"Good grief, fun has been used as an attributive adjective since at least the 1950s and possibly earlier."

"Well, just accept it. That's the way it is. If you must use it that way, then I would say more fun for the comparative and most fun for the superlative. Now, on to the other rules."

"Yes, please."

"Okay, if you have one syllable words ending in -e, the comparative can be formed by adding -r to the end and the superlative can be formed by adding -st to the end. Want to try some examples?"

"Sure. How about: nice, nicer, nicest; fine, finer, finest; sane, saner, and sanest."

"Sanest? Are you sure?"

"Yep. Keep going with the rules, please."

"Yes ma'am. For one syllable words that have more than one vowel or that end in more than one consonant, add -er for the comparative and add -est for the superlative. Examples include ..."

"Excuse me, naughty nephew, that's my job. Examples include: light, lighter, lightest; tight, tighter, tightest; great, greater, and greatest."

"Very good. Now, the next rule is this: If the word is two syllables and ends in -y, you can change the -y to -i and then for the comparative add -er and for the superlative add -est."

"Examples of this include: funny, funnier, funniest; loony, loonier, looniest; lumpy, lumpier, lumpiest; noisy, noisier, and noisiest," said Aunt Ruth with a smile.

"Okay, here's the last rule. If the word is two syllables and does not end in -y, or if the word is three or more syllables, then you do not change the form of the adjective. Instead, you use more for the comparative and most for the superlative."

Aunt Ruth jumped in with more examples. "So I think this means: insane, more insane, most insane; anxious, more anxious, most anxious; worried, more worried, and most worried."

"By jove, I think you've got it."

"Well natty nephew, I must be on my way," said Super Relative Aunt Ruth, and she began walking home.

"Wait, can't you fly home? You flew here, after all."

"Okay, I'll let you in on a secret. I didn't fly here. I launched myself here, with Herman Waxblatz's ultra canonical cannon."

"Ultra canonical cannon?"

"Yep. It's the canonicalest of them all. It's even canonicaler than Pachelbel's."

"Aunt Ruth, Pachelbel's Canon is a song, not a weapon."

"Oh that explains it."

"Explains what?"

"I was looking for his cannon, so I went to a military base."

"Say good night, Aunt Ruth."

"Up, up, and away ..."