Rude comparative ruder superlative rudest
But the most rude is applied in the following title:
The Most Rude, ill-Mannered, and Humiliating Plays in NBA History!
Can we use both forms for any circumstance?
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1The general "rule" applied to superlatives is if it only has one syllable - or two and ends in a vowel sound; as, "angry" - then you would use the word plus it's superlative ending. Otherwise, one would use "most [word]." However this isn't set in stone and either form can be used as needed.– QMordMar 25, 2016 at 17:02
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The word "ruder" e.g. is just fine, and probably more frequently used. What sounds better will depend on context. 'He is ruder than anyone I ever met.' Normal 'He is more rude than anyone I ever met.' (Correct but not as natural as the first.) 'He couldn't be more rude.' (Normal.) 'He couldn't be ruder.' (Normal, but the first version is a bit more natural.)– YuriMar 27, 2016 at 4:48
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4 Answers
The Most Rude, ill-Mannered, and Humiliating Plays in NBA History!
If we use rudest here, we would have to still use "most" for the other adjectives:
The Rudest, Most ill-Mannered, and Most Humiliating Plays in NBA History!
The title uses "most" to apply to all three adjectives, because "ill-Manneredest" is a word I've never seen nor would wish to see in a title, unless written in jest, and there's no "humiliatingest".
Hence, the most logical, or logicalest, way is just to attach "most" at the start of the title.
answered Mar 25, 2016 at 11:32
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@Ustanak - there is no such word in common usage, I made it up for humor's sake. Mar 25, 2016 at 17:37
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3I think that the version with rudest would have to be "the rudest, most ill-mannered, and most humiliating", since otherwise the "most" only seems to have scope over "ill-mannered" rather than over "ill-mannered and humiliating".– ruakhMar 25, 2016 at 20:48
You know, I often wonder, as I stare at our recycling bin:
Is cold liquid acceptable?
This ambiguity could easily have been resolved by printing NO LIQUID OR HOT ASHES.
In the example from the question, it could be reworded as:
"The Most ill-Mannered, Humiliating and Rudest Plays in NBA History!"
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No. Because hot liquid will quickly turn into outside-temperature liquid, assuming the dumpster is outside and there are no other forces causing the temperature to differ. Unless liquid is so hot that it melts the dumpster, there is no reason why they would care about only hot liquids. Hence, the message must just be referring to liquid in general. So the obvious lesson, to be learned here, is to make sure that zero percent of your garbage can pass through a strainer before it is thrown away.– TOOGAMMar 26, 2016 at 6:53
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Although I think there is nothing wrong with 'most rude' in the first place, so no rewording seems necessary! And probably the writer put 'rude' at the beginning to make sure nobody would take 'rude' as a simple adjective and not a superlative. He simply tried to emphasize on his choice of structure which is defendable anyway.– YuriMar 27, 2016 at 4:52
Ya I too think it totally depends on the context and how natural you want to sound.
rude
ruder or more rude
rudest or most rude
In some context rudest may be good and sound natural while in other most rude may be more natural. It's up to you what you want to use.
To answer your question, yes you can use RUDE (it's a link) in both forms, i.e. rudest and most rude. There are some adjectives that can be used in both forms such as rude, clever, friendly, sure, crazy, likely, simple, common.
Apart from what you can find in dictionaries sometimes it gets tricky when people simply use a form that they think is easier or more beautiful to articulate.
As CowperKettle well pointed out, most has been elided afterwards to avoid repetition. There is no problem with using most rude in the first place.
