More correct

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I notice that you do not advise members that the expression "more correct" does not exist. As a superlative, correct cannot be modified.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

Words of an absolute nature such as correct, incorrect, right, wrong, true, false, etc. have no comparative or superlative.  For example, on a test if an answer is correct, there is not going to be an answer that is more correct than it, etc.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

wilpeterI notice that you do not advise members that the expression "more correct" does not exist.

Who do you mean by "you"? There are a lot of individuals who contribute here.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

AnonymousWords of an absolute nature such as correct, incorrect, right, wrong, true, false, etc. have no comparative or superlative.

That is logical, but you will hear people say, "You couldn't be more wrong!"

CalifJim · Answer

wilpeterthe expression "more correct" does not exist

But it does exist, in the sense that it can be found in the writing and speech of native speakers. If you insist that "correct" is absolutely non-gradable in all styles of writing, you should take it to mean "more nearly correct" when you come across it, as that is certainly the intention of the writer.

CJ

Fivejedjon · Answer

Stephen Pinker has something to say about this type of question:

They say you can't be a little bit married or a little bit pregnant, and purists believe that the same is true for certain other adjectives. One of the commonest insults to the sensibility of the purist is the expression "very unique" and other phrases in which an "absolute" or "incomparable" adjective is modified by an adverb of degree such as "more", "less", "somewhat", "quite" or "almost". Uniqueness, the purists say, is like marriage and pregnancy: something is either unique (one of a kind) or not unique, so referring to degrees of uniqueness is meaningless. Nor can one sensibly modify "absolute", "certain", "complete", "equal", "eternal", "perfect" or "the same". One may not write, for instance, that one statement is "more certain" than another, or that an apartment is "relatively perfect".

A glance at the facts of usage immediately sets off Klaxon horns. Great writers have been modifying absolute adjectives for centuries, including the framers of the American Constitution, who sought "a more perfect union". Many of the examples pass unnoticed by careful writers, including "nothing could be more certain" and "there could be no more perfect spot". Though the phrase "very unique" is universally despised, other modifications of "unique" are unobjectionable, as when Martin Luther King wrote, "I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson, and the great grandson of preachers."

Here is the flaw in the purists' logic. Uniqueness is not like pregnancy and marriage; it must be defined relative to some scale of measurement. I am told that all snowflakes are unique, and so they may be under a microscope, but frankly, they all look the same to me. Conversely, each of the proverbial two peas in a pod is unique if you squint hard enough through a magnifying glass. Does this mean that nothing is unique, or does it mean that everything is unique? The answer is neither: the concept "unique" is meaningful only after you specify which qualities are of interest to you and which degree of resolution or grain size you're applying. Calling something "quite unique" or "very unique" implies that the item differs from the others in an unusual number of qualities, that it differs from them to an unusual degree, or both. In other words, pick any scale or cutoff you want, and the item will still be unique.

This doesn't mean that you should go ahead and use "very unique". "Very" is a soggy modifier in the best of circumstances, and the combination with "unique" grates on enough readers that it's wise to avoid it.

Ozzourti · Answer

I use "more correct" only when the word "correct" itself should actually be wrapped in quotation marks—usually when discussing two expressions I consider acceptable while some people still claim that only one of them is correct.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

ozzourtiI use "more correct" only when the word "correct" itself should actually be wrapped in quotation marks—usually when discussing two expressions I consider acceptable while some people still claim that only one of them is correct.

If there were no degrees of "correctness," then all students would mourn.
In a world of strict absolutes, teachers would never give "partial credit."

Wilpeter · Answer

Thank you everyone who responded. That satisfies my desire for transparency. I do hope many "Anonymous" posters have also read this thread. AlpheccaStars summed it up nicely with her comment on 'strict absolutes'. I picture a typical exam in which a checkbox for True or False is the absolute. If the question were "Is every fingerprint unique?", I would need a third box to say "So far!"
fivejedjon quoted some interesting American examples of deviations that could hardly be corrected now. "A more perfect union" (had it been written by Winston Churchill) might have read "A less imperfect union", since it implies the Union is not perfect. I'm not sure of Martin Luther King's education, but I'm sure he was aware that he was not in a unique position.
I cannot change the world's language use, nor would it be as colourful were it not flexible, so all we can do is draw attention to some of the little things that might be criticized by a purist. The (users of the) Internet invented more words in ten years than the Oxford Dictionary could find in history. I accept that the spell-checker (even when set to Canadian English) will not accept several of my words; but I know it isn't out of spite.
Fortunately, this thread is not about "Truth", which is definitely just a concept that keeps changing. Ask any judge.
To sum up, I accept that 'correct' can be modified by words like 'almost', 'rather', 'sometimes'; and that in the negative state, 'Nothing could be more correct' and 'Your answer is almost correct' are acceptable because they are admitting to non-correctness. I almost forgot: "I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." -- are there more than three truths?

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