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Anonymous Posted 17 years ago
Grammar

Littlest

I see from dictionaries that "littlest" is a real word. Yet I'm not comfortable when it is used. Perhaps it sounds like baby talk. I would use "smallest" or "tiniest" instead.

Does anyone out there feel the same way? Or can you tell me why I might have this aversion?
  

Top answer

Dear friend, please don't feel uncomfortable on hearing such a word - there is little reason for embarrassment compared to certain other utterances produced by speakers. Corpus linguistics reveals that 'little' often has an inflectional form of comparative/superlative: littler, littlest. This trend applies to adjectives ending in syllabic /l/, other words include, eg, noble and simple .

— Andriy Lapin

  • Dear friend, please don't feel uncomfortable on hearing such a word - there is little reason for embarrassment compared to certain other utterances produced by speakers.
  • Corpus linguistics reveals that 'little' often has an inflectional form of comparative/superlative: littler, littlest.
  • This trend applies to adjectives ending in syllabic /l/, other words include, eg, noble and simple .
  • However, there is a good reason for choosing phrasal marking (with more/most ) - it makes the comparison more prominent, especially in speech, where 'more/most' can be stressed.
  • Respectfully, Gleb Chebrikoff.
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1 Answers
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Dear friend,

please don't feel uncomfortable on hearing such a word - there is little reason for embarrassment compared to certain other utterances produced by speakers. Corpus linguistics reveals that 'little' often has an inflectional form of comparative/superlative: littler, littlest. This trend applies to adjectives ending in syllabic /l/, other words include, eg, n
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