Is this sentence correct and why?

Question

"This country is perhaps the most violator of human rights on the planet." Notice that the word "most" is used as an adjective here and not an adverb.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

Duly noted. But you can't do that. "Most" as an adjective is the superlative of "many." "He has the most violations of any driver I know." (It tells how many - the number of violations.)

You would need "the greatest violator of human rights. . "

I've only heard "most" used as a synonym for "greatest" in 50's jive: Man, you're the greatest! Man, you're the most! Maybe that's a compound noun?

Best wishes, - A.

Wholegrain · Answer

Weird, I found that on an article. So the author made a mistake?

I thought greatest in extent or most meant greatest.

1.
a. Greatest in number: won the most votes.

b. Greatest in amount, extent, or degree: has the most compassion.

Avangi · Answer

You can say "the greatest number of votes," where greatest modifies number, but you can't say "the greatest votes." You can, however, say "the greatest vote," where "vote" is an uncountable quantity.

Compassion is a scalar quantity. Violator is not. You have compassion. You are a violator.

To make a parallel case, you'd have to say something like, "This country has the most contempt for human rights [of any country] on the planet," where "contempt" is a scalar like "compassion."

Avangi · Answer

wholegrain1.

a. Greatest in number: won the most votes.

b. Greatest in amount, extent, or degree: has the most compassion.This is good, wholegrain. You were correct in objecting to my implication that most must be the superlative of many. Huevos nailed me the other day on a similar screwup. We must be careful not to confuse "quantity" with "countable/uncountable."

As your reference shows, "most" can refer to the number or to the amount - that is, to the quantity. But it can't refer to the thing which has that quantity. There we must use "greatest."

He has the most passion. He has the most girlfriends. But he is the greatest lover. (You can't say "he is the most lover.")

Edit. But you can say, "He has the greatest passion." So to this extent my statement was in error that "most" and "greatest" cannot be synonyms. At least in this sense they can. But please remember that "greatest" cannot mean "most" in the sense of "He has the most girlfriends," and "most" cannot mean "greatest" in the sense of "He is the greatest lover," (except in the jive sense, "Man, you're the greatest!")

Sorry it took me so many words to straighten this out. - A.

BarbaraPA · Answer

wholegrainWeird, I found that on an article. So the author made a mistake?

Yes. It's ungrammatical.

Wholegrain · Answer

Ok, thanks.

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