There Is No Such Word As "Stupider", Ann!!
By Number Six
Friday, December 09, 2005 at 05:26 PM
Oh puhleeze. Ann Coulter, the reigning...well, whatever...was about to set loose yet another rightist/fascist/American Taliban tirade and...
Speaking, or attempting to speak at University Of Connecticut, Rightist firebrand and often completely wrong Ann Coulter stopped a little bit into her spiel when protesters heckled her to a dead screeching halt.She then told the crowd:
I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am.
Ann, honey, sweetheart? No such word. Check your Webster's or Oxford's. "Stupider" does not exist!
And she's supposed to be an attorney? And she uses such wretched English such as this??
My English teacher would've paddled her hind end for that.
It's bad enough that Ms. Coulter can't open her mouth without some form of verbal sewage spewing forth, but...well...are we supposed to be impressed by someone who is supposed to be ejumacated? And uses such horrid......???
Worse, I mean, think about it, okay? Someone sits back and states they adore engaging in verbal warfare with someone who is less intellectually enlightened than they are. So, does this automatically mean we throw the rules of proper and excellent English to the four winds? Or was she attempting to make a point?
Well, overall, it does not bode well. It doesn't look that suave, now does it? Someone's "stupider" than you are and you can't select the proper grammar or words to state such? And does this mean we now have to go out and find someone whose grammar is even worse?
Maybe we should. Perhaps Poopdeck Pappy, eh?
"I knows one thing, and that's that there ain't nuthin' I ain't never gonna do about none of it!"
Yeah, that'd work!
Comments
Actually you might want to check your sources again. Stupider is a correct word and you will find it in the dictionary, probably under the word 'stupid' along with some suffixes: -ider and -idest.
Dear Self Appointed Grammar King/Queen:
Although at one time I might have agreed with you that Ann Coulter was stupider than most for using that word, I have since been ejumacated. You would be wise to do the same. Your unabashed insistence that she is basically a moron for using the word "stupider" comes across as extremely arrogant and condescending, when actually you are the ignorant one. Take a look at what some ejumacated people have to say on this topic.
Dear Susan: Well, let's put it this way: Your opinion is better informed than theirs. "Stupider" is a perfectly good word. Anyone not inclined to believe me can check a dictionary, like the American Heritage or Webster's Third New International, that gives comparative and superlative endings ("-er" and "-est") for adjectives that have them. "More stupid" is not necessarily wrong. But where a comparative form like "stupider" exists, it's generally better form to use it than to put "more" in front of the adjective.
This was written by Barbara Wallraff, a senior editor and the back-page Word Court and Word Fugitives columnist for The Atlantic. In the world of language commentary, Barbara offers an unequaled combination of authority, accessibility, and popularity. Besides her work for The Atlantic, she is a weekly syndicated columnist for King Features. She is the author of the nationally best-selling book Word Court, published in 2000, and Your Own Words, published in 2004. She is a member of the American Heritage Dictionary Usage Panel, the American Copy Editors Society, the American Dialect Society, and the Modern Language Association.
You would be wise to be sure of things before you stick you "leftist" foot in your big, bigger and biggest mouth.