Grammar Smart 3rd Edition - Princeton Review 2014

B. Adjectives
Part 1. The Names of Things

Adjectives are descriptive words. Gorgeous, hideous, smelly, baggy, and pathetic are all adjectives. They describe or modify nouns.

Less obviously descriptive are adjectives that show which one or how many: that man, his dessert, enough meatloaf, every dog. See how the adjectives clarify which noun (or how many of each noun) is being talked about? (See the following Quick Quiz #3)

Quick Quiz #3

Note the adjectives in the paragraphs below.

The day Billy was born dark thunder clouds swept across the sky. His loving parents glanced out the hospital window and saw jagged lightning crash to the ground.

“Is this a bad omen?” Billy’s balding mother asked.

“Don’t be superstitious,” Billy’s balding father said, but secretly he wondered whether the scary weather would forebode trouble for young Billy. Billy’s father had seen Rosemary’s Baby earlier that week, and he peeked into the brand-new bassinet to see if Billy looked like a newborn baby or a newborn monster.

As Billy grew up his parents were relieved to see how normal he was. Billy talked back to his parents, destroyed the house, refused to eat green vegetables, and came home bloody from the playground just like any other kid.

Billy’s parents were none too perceptive, and there were other, more subtle signs—signs that Billy was weirder than you average child—that they failed to see.

Click here for the answers.

Rules for Adjectives

1. An adjective like ugly can be relative; in other words, you aren’t necessarily either ugly or not ugly—you can be ugly to degrees. To show this kind of comparison, there are three forms of adjectives:

positive  comparative   superlative

 ugly   uglier     ugliest

 great   greater    greatest

If you are comparing only one thing to another, from the comparative by adding -er to the adjective.

My dog is uglier than your dog.

If you are comparing more than two things, form the superlative by adding -est to the adjective.

My dog is the ugliest dog on earth.

2. Some adjectives do not lend themselves to adding -er or -est to the stem. In these cases, use more as the comparative and most as the superlative. Your ear should be able to discern which form is appropriate; when in doubt, use more or most.

Your dog is more beautiful than my dog.

That is the most unbelievable thing I have ever heard.

3. Some adjectives are absolute—you either have the quality or you don’t. So there is no comparative or superlative for adjectives such as perfect, dead, square, or essential.

You can’t be deader that someone else who is only dead. And you know from geometry that squares must have four equal sides and four right angles—so a shape either conforms to that definition or it doesn’t. Essential means necessary; the quality isn’t relative.

Keep in mind that when advertisers scream “This soap will make your whites whiter!” they may sell more detergent, but they are misusing an absolute adjective.

Absolute adjectives:

absolute      basic    certain

        complete     empty    entire

        devoid      excellent          fatal

final       dead    perfect

square      essential    unique

full       harmless    immortal

        meaningless     obvious            pure

superior      ultimate     universal

You get the idea. If you’re wondering about a word that’s not on the list, think about its meaning. Does it seem to express an absolute quality?

4. Adjectives that describe how much or how many are often misused. If you are talking about something that you can count individually, use fewer or many. If you are talking about something that can’t be counted individually—something that’s more like a blob, or a quantity—use less, a lot of, much.

I ate fewer french fries than you did.

You ate less mashed potatoes than I did.

Quick Quiz #4

Identifying Adjectives

Note the appropriate adjective:

1. Last night I ate (fewer, less) marshmallows than Wanda did.

2. She considered the marshmallow to be (a perfect, the most perfect) food.

3. In rating marshmallows and oysters, Wanda liked marshmallows (best, better).

4. “A marshmallow is (spongier than, the spongiest of) any other food,” she said.

5. Although she ate (many, much) marshmallows, she ate (fewer, less) Jell-O.

Adjective Trivia Question: In some languages, French for example, adjectives of a certain type precede the noun, and others follow the noun. In English, adjectives almost always come before the noun: a happy fellow, green apples. Now for bonus points: name an English adjective that is placed after the noun it modifies. Check your answer on this page.