Re: syllable importance

Andreas Johansson scripsit:

> For some reason, "cleverer, cleverest" would invariably turn up as an
> example of an inflectionally compared English adjective in my English
> textbooks back in elementary and high school.
Okay, okay, an exception to the exception.  Googling shows that "cleverer"
and "more clever" are about even, but "cleverest" beats "most clever"
about 3 to 1, so the avoidance of "-erer" is still operating.

Similarly, although "-ly" can be added to any adjective with a few lexical
exceptions such as "good:well", it's avoided for adjectives already ending
in "-ly" such as "lonely": "lonelily" has only about 400 hits compared
to six million for "lonely", whereas "happily" has two million hits
compared to 39 million for "happy", a more reasonable ratio.

In addition, many of the hits for "lonelily" refer to the title of a
specific song, and others may represent a nonce compound of "lone lily".
I doubt that there are more than a few straightforward native-speaker
prose instances.

--
It was dreary and wearisome.  Cold clammy winter still held way in this
forsaken country.  The only green was the scum of livid weed on the dark
greasy surfaces of the sullen waters.  Dead grasses and rotting reeds loomed
up in the mists like ragged shadows of long-forgotten summers.
        --"The Passage of the Marshes"          http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

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