Most fair or fairest?

Anonymous If my sentence is:

I think that would be [fairest / most fair].

Which one is right?

Thanks so much!
Catalina

fairest

It depends. English is sometimes a little inexact, but if you want to say "I think that would be very fair", you should opt for

I think that would be most fair.

Most fair is an absolute superlative. If you want comparison with other possibilities, you might say:

I think that would be fairest. (= fairer than anything else)

You may ask why th

Cool BreezeIt depends. English is sometimes a little inexact, but if you want to say "I think that would be very fair", you should opt for

Hi, CB, how would you deal with a situation where you are quoting but not quoting someone said but rather to make a point like yours "I think that would be very fair," would you place a period sinc

I'm not particularly meticulous about punctuation. If I understood you correctly, you are asking whether there should be a period after fair in my sentence? I didn't use one, someone else might.

The absolute superlative is one of the least fixed structures in English; there are cases in which it is identical with the relative superlative. It is quite amazing that my native langua

Cool Breeze, I find this post of yours to be mostinteresting. However, I haven't fully grab the idea of relative versus abs

AnonymousI think that would be [fairest / most fair].

Which one is right?

Hi Catalina,

As a general rule, when you want to make a comparative use "-er" and "-est" if the word has only one syllable, otherwise use "more" and "most".

New2grammarCool Breeze, I find this post of yours to be most interesting.

Thanks, N2G

You've got your English correct in your examples, but some of the terms are wrong. There are no absolute superlatives in your sentences. (The one that says a girls was "smartest when she was 5 years old" is grammatically correct, but it strikes me as od

fairest - the norm these days
most fair - poetical and literary usage, a bit obsolete

Most fair is correct.

Signed,

an English teacher

Tell that to the mirror, mirror, on the wall!