That There's English

There's comparative, superlative, and then there's the 'huh?'.

I'm on a second week of teaching comparing adjectives to the kids - it's like getting milk from a goat (it may seem easy from a distance, but when you try and do it yourself, you realize that some things are better left alone). I don't remember ever learning comparative and superlative in school when I was growing up, but I do know which words sound best and which don't. As Sam and I joked one time while looking over his grades, "These ain't not half bad."

Today was like any other Monday. By that I mean I retaught everything from last week,... starting with, "Hello, I'm Mr. Kelly. I'll be your teacher this year." Okay, so maybe it's not to that extreme every Monday.

We began our grammar lesson by reviewing the comparative / superlative comparisons that can only be commonly known by contestants on 'I'm Smarter Than A Fifth Grader,' and a student teacher, majoring in English, who likes to go around telling everyone she knows the difference between comparative and superlative in hopes of landing a job (either that, or she's waiting to hear back from 'I'm Smarter Than A Fifth Grader' in hopes of winning a million dollars and not needing a job after all).

"When using the words more / most we use the comparative of more when talking about two subjects. We use most when we compare more than two." I proceed by going through a few examples on the overhead. Feeling that I've conquered the more / most lesson, I readied myself to test my expert tutelage.

Confidently I ask a student to use a comparative adjective in the following sentence: 'The artist had __________ paintings than his friend.'

The student ever so hesitantly replies with,... "morest". 'The artist had morest paintings than his friend.'

There you have it. My job is complete! I'm off to find a goat to milk.