Discussion Forum—A Way with Words, a fun radio show and podcast about language

Glenn said:

This is certainly my most notable example. Each time I put it in writing, "just deserts" creates a firestorm. Now I avoid it.

Last time I saw it "in print" was the Wall Street Journal online, wsj.com, in an acticle about Eliot Spitzer. You can fill in the blanks. Online it was spelled "just desserts" so I ran (as fast as I could) to a buddy I knew would have the paper copy, in which it was spelled correctly as "just deserts." I prefer to assume the print editor was more skilled than the online editor, and made a last-minute change. The alternative possibility that the online editor "corrected" the spelling to "desserts" would be too distressing to dwell upon.

I e-mailed wsj.com, but got no reply, and the online article was never corrected to my knowledge.

Holy smokes, I had no idea it was "just deserts"! I would've read that as "just dehz-erts." I think I'll avoid this phrase from now on… like the word "niggardly."

Rhododendron said:

Glenn said:

I can attest to the wide use of the term "black ice" in Concord N.H. in the winter of 1974-1975. It was great to skate all over the lakes and ponds.

There and then it refered to the water freezing to a safe thickness without having snow to ruin the smooth surface, making all the lakes and ponds open for recreation. This newspaper article (The Day, New London CT, Nov. 23, 1977) puts it well.
Black Ice

Now I more often hear it refer to the road hazard of hard-to-spot frozen patches.
Which did it mean in the Pacific Northwest?

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In the Northwest, it referred to the road hazard. In the valleys west of the Cascades, you often had wet mornings after nights just below freezing, which left thin ice on the roads looking just like wet asphalt, hence black ice.

As a sports fan, I always cringe when I hear a commentator say "he is one of the better pitchers in the league." I understand the idea, but, as +Grant said, it's hard to hear a comparative when you're expecting a superlative. What's wrong with "good"? As in he's one of the good pitchers in the league?

ninagilbert said:

Grant Barrett said:

A woman says that when playing hide-and-seek with a small child, her mother-in-law says "peep-eye!" instead of "peekaboo!" Is that usage limited to certain parts of the country? And where do they say "pee-bo!"?

Whoops -- I quoted you twice, I think. My first post here.

Peek-a-boo is indeed related to Little Bo Peep. In Elizabethan England there was a game called "Bo Peep," involving a blindfold called a Bo-Peeper. Sort of a mix of Blindman's Bluff, Hide and Seek, and kissing. There's a madrigal (part-song) by Francis Pilkington that says, "Now peep, bo peep, thrice happy blest mine eyes" -- the implication is that someone playing Bo Peep has found the woman he was looking for.

You can see the song here, assuming I can post a link, and follow the story through the verses:
http://tiny.cc/ycjzs

Cheers,

Nina Gilbert, author of "Who's Who in Arcadia: A Madrigal Directory" (Chorus America, 1986)

AndrewH said:

Grant Barrett said:

When comparing one item with the rest of the items in a group, which is better: more or most?

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To me, one with engineering disciplines, this is a fairly simply question involving probabilities, averages, ratios, relative qualities or math in short, LOL. When saying someone is 'more' (adjective) in some group, I would think of someone is better than average. As in picking anyone from the group to compare the subject, the person is likely better. As in the caller's case, Johny is a stronger candidate of the group than anyone that is picked at random to compare. If someone is one of the 'most' (adjective) in a group, the person has to be in the top third of group. As in Johny would be the strongest of the candidate if two other people picked at random to compare.

Personally, this method of the thinking makes the most sense. Johny is likely a strong candidate out of 40 applicate but how strong? By saying stronger, Johny is better than average or the top half and better than No. 20, which also works with one and one relative comparison. If Johny is a very strong candidate, yet one is unsure whether he is No. 1, but sure of being in the top third, 'one of the strongest' works just fine. Random two other plus Johny relative comparison would be just fine as well.

This concludes my little nuggets of reasoning, hope you all enjoyed it.

Andrew H.

I would say the two forms are pretty much interchangeable with no difference in denotative meaning but a slight difference in connotation. Let's start with a prescriptive convention we can all agree on:

When the adjective is preceded by a quantifying modifier, the superlative form is obligatory:

1. Dallas is the ninth largest city in the U.S.
2. Randall is one of the three best singers in the tenor section of the choir.

When no such quantifier exists, I think it comes down to user discretion with regard to connotation. The comparative interjects a note of uncertainty and suggests that either the speaker is expressing a personal opinion ("Mandarin is one of the more difficult languages to learn.") or that no hard data are at hand to verify the speaker's claim. For example, let's say I'm comparing the height of Mt. Rainier to other tall peaks in the U.S. I know that it's a "fourteener," but I also know it's not the highest in the country. Is it the second or third highest…the tenth or twentieth? I'm really not sure, and rather than take the time to look it up, I'm going to simply say that it is "one of the higher peaks in the continental U.S." I call this the "subjective comparative."

Sometimes emotional intensity requires the use of the superlative. If your boyfriend breaks up with you via text message, you're not going to call him up and tell him that he's "got to be one of the lamer specimens of the male gender on the face of the planet." You're going to give him full benefit of the doubt and use the superlative. Similarly, the comparative can be used for emotional softening. If you are Johnny's teacher, you might tell his parents that Johnny is "one of the slower readers in the class" even if he's dead last because the connotative impression is a bit softer.

The whole mentor/mentee thing, I caught the protege/prodigy angle as well.

As a science-fiction fan, however, I wouldn't mind seeing "padawan" take off. 😉

Oh, and as a "Gary", I am almost always called "Greg" by people who barely know me (first or second introduction)