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Teo Posted 21 years ago
Grammar

most favorite

According to Common English Errors of Chinese Students (by David Bunton), "favorite" cannot be used with "most".
However, a Google advanced search for most favorite shows 2,110,000 results. See [url=http://www.google.com/search?as_q=&num=10&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=most+favorite&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images]Google RESULT[/url]

Is David Bunton wrong?

Thank you very much for your reply.

Teo

Editing Note: Teo, please don’t paste too long a http address directly. Http addresses can't be split that this board gets elongated if such a long address is contained in the message.
  

Top answer

Hi, According to Common English Errors of Chinese Students (by David Bunton), favorite cannot be used with most. However, a Google advanced search for most favorite shows 2,110,000 results. Is David Bunton wrong?

— Clive

  • Hi, According to Common English Errors of Chinese Students (by David Bunton), favorite cannot be used with most.
  • However, a Google advanced search for most favorite shows 2,110,000 results.
  • Is David Bunton wrong?
  • 'Favourite' means preferred above all others, so how can there be two such things?
  • No, he's not wrong.
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22 Answers
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Hi,

According to Common English Errors of Chinese Students (by David Bunton), favorite cannot be used with most.

However, a Google advanced search for most favorite shows 2,110,000 results.

Is David Bunton wrong?

'Favourite' means pre
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Teo
According to Common English Errors of Chinese Students (by David Bunton), favorite cannot be used with most.

However, a Google advanced search for most favorite shows 2,110,000 results.

Is David Bunton wrong?

Thank you very much for your reply.

And
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Basically "favorite" is a noun to mean a thing/person one prefers above others. It can be used as kind of an adjective but it is an imperfect adjective with some restrictions in usage. For example, you cannot say "This is favorite to me" to mean "This is my favorite". "She is my favorite actress" is semantically like "She is (my favorite)'s actress". So you cannot put periphrastic words such as "
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semantically like "She is (my favorite)'s actress"
I confess I've lost you there, Paco! Emotion: smile
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My memory-chomping AOL browser (may the curse of Google light upon their "help" desk) has a tab called Favourites.

Some are more favourite than others...

MrP
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As far as I know, most favorite is correct. I've been using it and English is my native language.
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S favorite / more favorite…ranking

nytimes.com=187,000/2=93,500
cnn.com 207,000/13=16,000
Gutenberg.org 85,600/11=7,730
ac.uk 80,100/13=6,162
edu 11,900,000/383=3,110
uk 1,880,000/904=2,080
com 218,000,000/167,000=1,035
gov 948,000/95=998

no interesting?

paco
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Interesting...but can we exclude non-comparative forms, e.g.

1. More favourite moments from your favourite tv sitcoms!

MrP
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How about: Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart are my favourite composers, but Beethoven is my most favourite?

Sort of sounds OK, but not quite right, unless done "knowingly". What should one say instead of most favourite here?
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Although my E-J dictionary says "most/more favorite" is a wrong usage, I come to feel it should be accepted as a standard usage. Even in NY times, they use "most favorite" in the news article as below.

"Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's latest strategy in his newest, most favorite sport-- making mischief in the race for his successor -- seems to be to bolster the fortunes
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