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How to Use Comparative and Superlative in English
A simple guide to getting it right
I first came across the word superlative as a young boy, when my older brother received a copy of The Guinness Book of Records among his Christmas presents. The illustration on the cover of the book featured a shop called Superlatives Unlimited. Of course, that particular title is always jam-packed with superlatives, such as fastest, highest, tallest, oldest, and so on, and I’ve browsed its fascinating pages many times over the years. The dictionary defines superlative as,
(of an adjective or adverb) expressing the highest or a very high degree of a quality (e.g. bravest, most fiercely).
A common error in English is to use the superlative when the comparative is called for (and less commonly the other way around). Consider this sentence.
Antarctica is the biggest of the two polar land masses on Earth.
It is grammatically incorrect because it uses the superlative, biggest, where it should have the comparative, bigger. In this article I shall explain the difference between the comparative and superlative, when each should be used, and how easy it is to commit the rule to memory.
