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Australian manual of scientific style Start communicating effectively
Making comparisons
Comparisons with adjectives
Most 1-syllabled adjectives take the endings -er and -est to show degrees of comparison:
kind → kinder → kindest
nice → nicer → nicest
true → truer → truest
Some 2-syllabled adjectives use -er and -est, and some add more or most before the adjective instead:
- adjectives ending in -y mostly use -er and -est
easy → easier → easiest
healthy → healthier → healthiest
pretty → prettier → prettiest
- adjectives ending in -le use either construction
humble → humbler → humblest or humble → more humble → most humble
simple → simpler → simplest or simple → more simple → most simple
- other adjectives of 2 or more syllables usually use more/most
helpful → more helpful → most helpful
attractive → more attractive → most attractive
Did you know? The 2 types of adjective comparison (with -er/-est and with more/most) should not be used side by side. Yet people sometimes do it for emphasis when speaking (eg the last words of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: This was the most unkindest cut of all).
Comparisons with adverbs
Adverbs formed with -ly are compared using more and most. Adverbs with just 1 syllable use er/-est:
The podcast explains it more simply than the book.
The judge responded most graciously.
They rowed faster than ever before.
The aurora shines brightest in the early spring.
Providing the basis of a comparison
If you are making a comparison – saying that something is better, taller, cooler than another thing – ensure that the basis of comparison is either included in the sentence itself or can be deduced from the context. Otherwise, the reader is left saying ‘better than what?’ ‘taller than whom?’ etc:
This was better than the previous approach.
He was easy to identify. He was the tallest man there.
The appointee was more experienced than the other candidates.
Compared with or compared to
Compared with is used when comparing differences between things, whereas compared to is used to indicate a likeness between the two:
Compared with Vermeer, his works were crude. [expresses a difference]
His paintings could be compared to those of Vermeer. [expresses a likeness; compare to could be replaced by liken to]
See also compare to, compare with.