Comparison: advanced points

Comparative meaning ‘relatively’, ‘more than average’

Comparatives can suggest ideas like ‘relatively’, ‘more than average’. Used like this, comparatives make a less clear and narrow selection than superlatives. Compare:

• There are two classes – one for the cleverer students and one for the slower learners.
• The cleverest students were two girls from York.

Comparatives are often used in advertising to make things sound less definite.

• less expensive clothes for the fuller figure (Compare cheap clothes for fat people.)

all/any/none the + comparative

All the + comparative (more common in British English) suggests the idea of ‘even more …’.

• I feel all the better for that swim.
• Her accident made it all the more important to get home fast.

Any and none can be used in similar structures.

• He didn’t seem to be any the worse for his experience.
• He explained it all carefully, but I was still none the wiser.

Note that this structure is used mainly to express abstract ideas. We would not say, for example, Those pills have made him all the slimmer.

In this structure, the was originally a demonstrative, meaning ‘by that’.

three times …er, etc

Instead of three/four, etc times as much (see here), we can use three/four, etc times + comparative.

• She can walk three times faster than you.
• It was ten times more difficult than I expected.

Note that twice and half are not possible in this structure.

• She’s twice as lively as her sister. (not … twice livelier …)

Words left out after than

Than often replaces a subject or object pronoun or an adverbial expression, rather like a relative pronoun or adverb (see here).

• She spent more money than was sensible. (not … than it was sensible.)
• There were more people than we had expected. (not … than we had expected them.)
• I love you more than she does. (not … than how much she does.)

(In some English dialects, the above sentences would be constructed with than what.)

the youngest person to …

After a superlative, an infinitive can mean the same as a relative clause.

• She’s the youngest person ever to swim the Channel. (= … the youngest person who has ever swum …)

This structure is also common after first, last and next.

• Who was the first woman to climb Everest?
• The next to speak was Mrs Fenshaw.

Note that this structure is only possible in cases where the noun with the superlative (or first, etc) has a subject relationship with the following verb. In other cases, infinitives cannot be used.

• Is this the first time that you have stayed here? (not … the first time for you to stay here – time is not the subject of stay.)

Superlatives with or without the

Nouns with superlative adjectives normally have the article the.

• It’s the best book I’ve ever read.

After linking verbs, superlative adjectives also usually have the, though it is sometimes dropped in an informal style.

• I’m the greatest.
• Which of the boys is (the) strongest?
• This dictionary is (the) best.

The cannot be dropped when a superlative is used with a defining expression.

• This dictionary is the best I could find. (not This dictionary is best I could find.)

However, we do not use the with superlatives when we compare the same person or thing in different situations. Compare:

• Of all my friends, he’s (the) nicest. (comparing different people)
  He’s nicest when he’s with children. (not He’s the nicest when … – we’re comparing the same person in different situations.)

• She works (the) hardest in the family; her husband doesn’t know what work is. (A woman is being compared with a man – the is possible.)
  She works hardest when she’s doing something for her family. (not She works the hardest when … – a woman’s work is being compared in different situations.)

The is sometimes dropped before superlative adverbs in an informal style.

• Who can run (the) fastest?