Superlative

This lesson is on superlative adverbs the superlative adverbs compare an action to three or more others we have several different ways of forming the superlative adverb as well as comparisons.

We also use them as intensify as and when the context is clear.

We usually omit the group.

We look at examples of all of these for short adverbs with what only one or two syllables add E T or s.t.

to the end.

And if there’s a Y at the end we replace that with an eye before adding GST Roy jumped high or Roy jumped the highest Peter.

Arrived late Peter arrived the latest and please note with late it already ends in E.

So we don’t add another E S T we just add an s t to the end and John arrived early.

John arrived the earliest.

So this one ends in a Y.

Replace it with I add GST for adverbs for three or more syllables.

We don’t do this because it gets too too unwieldy so we add most or least before the adverb so Jack drives carefully Jack drives the most carefully of them all if we have said carefully s it’s unwieldy or star shined brightly at night star shine least brightly on a cloudy night and of course his English so there are lots of irregularities.

Sarah plays tennis well Sarah plays tennis the best so the superlative well is best Jim scored badly on the test.

Jim did the worst in the class so the superlative badly is worst Tony ran far today today Tony ran the farthest or furthest now both farthest and furthest are these superlative of far and we often use farthest for distances and furthest falsehoods concepts.

I think if you use either most people wouldn’t mind or journey a little in the evening Jenny at the least in the evening to the superlative of Little is least and the superlatives of much and many are both most.

and as well as comparisons most can also be used as a sort of intensifier and when we do this it sort of has the same meaning as very had the table was most tastefully arranged.

Again we didn’t have a lot of tastefully arranged tables and that one was the most tastefully arranged.

No the table was most tastefully arranged.

Now this is very tastefully arranged Josie sang most beautifully during the concert I await your arrival most eagerly.

I can usually tell when it’s being used as an intensifier because the word that is missing is in say the first example.

If we had really a range of tables that were all tastefully arranged and one of them was deemed to be the best it was say the table was the most tastefully arranged but because the word that is missing.

This tells us that it’s being used as an intensifier and when the context is clear we usually omit the group.

All the brothers are fast runners.

Tony is the fastest implied of the brothers they have it because we’ve explained the context already we don’t need to repeat it.

Now the other way in which we omit the group is when we’re comparing the same thing over various different situations or times.

So if we were to say I work best by myself I’m comparing myself to other times when other people are around and here again in the first example we had Tony is the fastest of a group that I work best by myself.

So there’s no there in these cases or athletes run fastest after they’ve warmed up first.

And again this is compared to pairing the same athletes to how they run when they haven’t warmed up or haven’t warmed up properly or birds sing most actively in the early morning and we’re not comparing how active they are because if it did it would be the most actively we’re comparing the birds and how they sing to other times of the day.