Charlie Sheen & Denise Richards..."The most nastiest couple"?

Serafin means "Angel of the highest order" (Concise Oxford Dictionary). Kim Serafin, a reporter and commentator of the Entertainment subculture (In Touch Weekly) who possesses a serafin smile, recently lost touch when proved guilty of the commission of a most unangelic grammatical error--the double superlative.

Comparitive and Superlative forms of adjectives "are used to emphasize or intensify meaning as well as merely to indicate literal differences of degree" between and among things (Harper's English Grammar, John B. Opdycke). If we didn't have these forms, usually formed by either adding suffixes: -er, -est, or by using the adverbs: more, most, how would we know which of a thing was least or most of some quality among other things?

Usually, when a thing is already the better or best of something, how could it be "more better," or "most best." I say "usually" because of course, exceptions occur; but tread carefully because we are no longer in the Elizabethan era when double comparatives and double superlatives were commonly used, even by William Shakespeare.

Back to Kim Serafin. She said of the most unseemly divorce proceedings between Mr. Sheen and Ms. Richards,

"There's no doubt this must be one of the most nastiest divorces..."

Ms. Serafin could have said, "one of the more nasty divorces," or "most nasty divorces," but not "most nastiest" which is redundant. You've said it once, Kim, no need for twice in one sentence, even if the substance of your reportage is largely blather and hyperbole.

For the record, when we express differences of degree upward, we use: more/most for the comparative (between two things), and most (among three or more things).

I would say that Ms. Serafin is among the best Entertainment reporters, but since there are no more than two good ones, I shall say she is usually the better between them.

 Subscribe in a reader