brittler is correct, but I also think that there's no strict rule, and depending on context, more brittle might be preferable.

My "Word", both AE and BE, thinks "brittler" is wrong; I tend to agree - it sounds very strange to my ears.

The Word spellchecker would be the last place I'd go for an authoritative opinion. Merriam-Webster says 'brittler' is the comparative of 'brittle'. I must admit to some surprise. But I shall use it in future with no qualms.

M-W is wrong again, IMHO.

M-W has been wrong many times, according to you, Jurist. What book, if any, do you cull your lexical wisdom from?

I speak this language.

Yes, I'm aware of that. And that's enough to know everything about it? No need to ever consult a book? I'm impressed.

I don't consult "Advanced Beginner" books, books for ESL learners or permissivist "authorities".

'Brittle' hat zwei Silben und die Endung ist '-le', deshalb soll es 'brittler' sein (#0)

I’m not aware of any rules for this sort of thing – I just try to play it by ear. My ear tends towards more brittle.

I wouldn't call Word authoritative myself either, but I do find "brittler" odd, and Escoville also says he was somewhat surprised. I'd agree "wrong" is the wrong word.

Then what do you use, Jurist? Maybe some of us here would like to at least try move up to your level and consequently would like to employ the proper literature. I know I would.

A quick check gives no support for brittler in OED (on line) or in my hard copy versions of the American Heritage Dictionary or Webster's Third new International, Unabridged.
Otherwise, I might check an older or newer version of Fowler or his successors for such things.

Dictionary.com offers brittler.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/brittle?s=t

Let's just say that 'brittler' is not in Jurist's idiolect (that's a paraphrase of his #6). It is in M-W's. Followers of this thread can choose their authority.

It wasn't in mine either, but any excuse for an -er comparative is good enough for me.

By the way, how would you pronounced brittler (assuming you were willing to say the word at all)?

Two syllables or three? Dictionary.com seems to suggest two. But I'd probably say it with three. (Similar to littler.)

Thank you, Jurist. The striving may now begin. :-)

P.S. Interesting to note that dictionary.com and m-w.com both break the word this way: brit-tler. That makes the second syllable -tler, beginning with a sound cluster (tl) which is never (rarely?) heard at the beginning of a syllable in English.

For me, as is often the case for questions of English usage, wrong is not a matter of incorrect application of some (agreed? purported?) grammar rule and certainly does not depend on the results of a web search (or the variation represented by dictionaries that will include just about anything), but rather whether it would be edited out of careful writing or, if heard by educated native speakers, would sound strange, uneducated, possibly foreign or perhaps like some other version of English.

Of course, not everyone speaks the language the same way I do, there are regional variations, different levels of formality, language use evolves, etc. But language learners who accept certain overly permissive or descriptive authorities for what they want to say take the risk that it will not have the desired effect for certain purposes.

Für BE gibt Daniel Jones; English Pronouncing Dict.,(ältere Aufl.),
brittler an und (auf die Frage von #15) die Aussprache ist danach zweisilbig.

I don't see why there's anything odder about brittler than littler. It's completely regular, so why should any dictionary list it separately at all, any more than dictionaries list any other regular comparative or superlative, or any adverb in -ly? That seems like a red herring.

BE would probably be less likely than AE to give an extra semi-syllable to the L, and it's true that those two pronunciations might sound funny on the respective other side of the pond.

But if you lean toward 'more brittle,' don't you rationally have to accept 'more little' as well?

So at Christmas someone here will tell the story of the most little angel, and we'll see who gets the most peanut candy. (-;

No, seriously, where's the thread in the archive about the decline of -er and -est forms in modern English? Jurist, I would have thought that might bug you as much as it bugs others of us who are generally more traditionalist than descriptivist about grammar.

The following is only my opinion, of course, but it's one I feel very strongly about:

The right answer is "brittler." I personally wouldn't consider writing or saying "more brittle."

When I was younger, people rarely had trouble knowing how to formulate comparatives/superlatives. Nowadays, people seem automatically, by default, to add "more," sometimes even when (to my ears) it sounds ridiculous.

In school I learned the rule that makes "brittler" correct--but after so many years I can no longer articulate it. (Under the rule, the "more" or "most" formulation pertains only as an exception to the rule's general requirement of "-er" or "-est." Someone will perhaps find the rule and report it to us. 

By the way, I particularly liked the reference by hm (#20) to "little."
 

Someone will perhaps find the rule and report it to us.

But who makes the “rules”? We don’t have a Duden in English (and even that lost its more or less official status with the introduction of the neue Rechtschreibung.)

Re #22.

I respect your point, Stravinsky. Indeed, I don't know who made the rule referred to in #21. All I know is that it was in a textbook, which the public-school-district gave all the students and from which our teachers taught us. Apparently it was a rule the school board wanted us to learn.

In any event, I assume there must still exist a standard rule governing comparatives and superlatives. I assumed (in #21) that such information is still being promulgated in textbooks and such. (I hope so.)

It's my view that standardized language-rules tend to good, efficient, reliable communication.

where's the thread in the archive about the decline of -er and -est forms in modern English?

Don't know. Ich denke jedoch, dass dieser 'decline' darauf beruhen könnte, dass all die Spanisch-Muttersprachler z.B. in den USA sowie die Französisch- und Italienisch-Sprechenden ihre Form der Bildung der Steigerungsform einbringen, nämlich mit
más [+Adjektiv], plus [+Adjektiv], etc., auch bei Adjektiven mit nur zwei Silben.

No doubt, "brittler" is genuinely a word, and it rightfully appears in the dictionary, but I would say "more brittle," and that's what I would recommend to HeidrunK.

And, judging by the Google results, I am in the overwhelming majority: 1.8 million ghits for "is more brittle" compared with 811 for "is brittler", (and some of these being questions like "is brittler a word for Scrabble?")

I think there's little doubt that 'more' comparatives are becoming commoner (or 'more common'). So the anti-brittler faction probably have time on their side.

eric (new york) raises an interesting point about the pronunciation. The word seems to have two syllables, but doesn't appear to rhyme with Hitler. The only resolution of this issue is to assume that the /l/ which is syllabic in 'brittle' remains syllabic in 'brittler'. In Year 1 Phonetics we were always warned that phoneme definitions were fuzzy at the edges (the distinctions between the various [l] sounds in English is not supposed to be phonemic).

Two, or three syllables according to Webster, with two syllables preferred (since listed first), although I happen to pronounce it with three:

brit·tle \'brit-əl\ adj brit·tler \'brit-lər, -əl-ər\; brit·tlest \-ləst, -əl-əst\ [ME britil, akin to OE brēotan to break, Skt bhrūna embryo] (14c) 1a : easily broken, ...

Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary (c) 1984 by Merriam-Webster Inc. ISBN 0-87779-508-8

Re martin-cal's google results: they are roughly reflected by an Ixquick search. Ixquick is the world's 'most discreet' search engine. Or should that be 'discreetest'? Try it, anyway.

I think where there are alternatives one will hear the word or words that flow better or just sound nicer. “More brittle” is pleasanter sounding than “brittler”, however pronounced, IMO.

hm mentions “littler”; I don’t think I’ve ever said “littler” or recall ever hearing it. I believe most English speakers would switch to “smaller”. Would one say “The houses in this area are all little, but the house on the corner is littler than the others in the street.”?
"Littler" sounds more like like child-speak to me frankly.


Googling scraps of sentences with “littler” indicate that the word is rarely used, in BE at least.

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=%22it+is+littler%...

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=%22one+is+littler...

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=%22he+is+littler%...

“More brittle” is pleasanter sounding than “brittler”, however pronounced, IMO.

"Brittler" sounds brittler to me than "more brittle".

Ixquick doesn't actually have any search technology, they're merely a consolidator of other search engines' results (akin to dogpile), with an added layer of privacy, so they say, to protect users.

FWIW, Using Google UK:
"more brittle" site:UK produces (scrolled to p.63) 103,000 results.
"brittler" site:UK produces (scrolled to p.13) only 128 results – some of which are the proper name “Brittler”

@29: Ohne hier wirklich mitreden zu können, glaube ich, mal ausdrücklich gelernt zu haben, dass es "littler, littlest" ebensowenig gebe wie "gooder, goodest" oder "badder, baddest", und dass man für die Steigerung von "little" auf "smaller, smallest" ausweichen müsse.

Aber was in deutschen Schulen gelehrt wird, ist ja bekanntlich nicht immer die reine Wahrheit über die englische Sprache ...

here the results mentioned in #32

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=%22more+brittle%2...

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=%22brittler%22+si...

@#31

So are they discreeter or more discreet? (Which was the main point of my post.)

Jane Austen has a 'discreeter' in Northanger Abbey.

Mikefm, your instinct matches one source, but opinions are rather mixed:

'Some authorities regard both littler and more little as non-standard. The OED says of the word little: "the adjective has no recognized mode of comparison. The difficulty is commonly evaded by resort to a synonym (as smaller, smallest); some writers have ventured to employ the unrecognized forms littler, littlest, which are otherwise confined to dialect or imitations of childish or illiterate speech." ' --Wiktionary online.

However, Bryan Garner says:

'littler; littlest. These forms--the comparative and superlative for little--are perfectly good, although some writers have gotten the odd idea that they're not.'

Based on many examples I've used over the years, I've come to trust Garner's command, data, and instincts about many issues of usage, over other references I have or am familiar with. If you don't have this reference, I can highly recommend it: "A Dictionary of Modern American Usage". I have the 1998 edition, but there have been several revisions.

American Heritage says,

lit·tle (lĭt'l) littler or less (lĕs) (especially for senses 2, 3, 4), littlest or least (lēst) (especially for senses 2, 3, 4)
1. small, or smaller in comparison. 2. short in extent or duration, brief: little time. 3. Small in quantity or degree: little money. 4. Unimportant; trivial; insignificant; little trouble. {Five other definitions follow.} --American Heritage Dictionary, New College Dictionary

NOAD has a long section, starting with the adjective (lit·tle |'litl| adj. ) and omits the comparative and superlative, which by the rules of this dictionary means the forms are regular. Following that, it lists the adverb, not duplicating the headword ('little') because it's the same, but adding the other forms, because they're irregular: adv. (less |les|, least |lēst| ) to a small extent: he reminded me a little of my parents. --New Oxford American Dictionary, Oxford University Press, 2001.

While 'littler' is very uncommon, I don't think this is true of 'littlest', which seems to me to be alive and well when talking about children.

Peter's #36 is interesting; maybe "littler" is more acceptable in AE than BE?
But as Escoville says, "(our) littlest" is often heard.
Let's not forget, if English were subject to hard and fast rules this entertaining discussion would not have arisen. ;-)

... maybe "littler" is more acceptable in AE than BE?

That seems to be the gist of it.

English has two competing systems of comparison, and the "rules" for which applies to a particular adjective/adverb are not definitive.

Agree with #29, #33 that little usually (but not always) suppletes to smaller or lesser.

A quick google seems to show that the "more, most" system seems to be preferred for
- polysyllabic adjectives (but only few bisyllables)
- adverbs with -ly
- descriptors of Latinate (incl. French) origin.

But these are only general trends. The situation seems to be that the -er, -est system is Germanic and tends to have bene preserved with words of Anglo-Saxon origin. In a process I'm sure Steven Pinker woud have something to say about, it is sometimes extended by analogy. The system commonly used for more recent words is the more, most one, but when children acquiring English have two systems to choose from it is to be expected that they will "overextend" the application of one or the other and the distribution of descriptors between the two systems will change across time and geography.

Agree with #29, #33 that little usually (but not always) suppletes to smaller or lesser.

"Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum."
(Augustus de Morgan)

Thanks for reminding us of that Stravinsky; btw, you ought to be able to set that to music... ;-)

Incidentally, in the rhyme quoted in #41, I tried substituting 'littler' and decided it didn't scan properly, which suggests that 'littler' is trisyllabic (to return to the discussion above) and rhymes with brittler but not with Hitler.

http://www.engrish.com/2008/09/air-extra/
:o)

Listen to how this American says the actor's name "Matt Littler":
http://youtu.be/McXnAemJ1qY?t=2m35s

Trisyllabic. Just like I would in this case of a name. Otherwise, I would never say littler/littlest, unless I was talking too fast to think of smaller/smallest.

@43 - it also wouldn't rhyme with Hitler because "littler/brittler" sound like "d" in the middle, where Hitler sounds like a "t". (For an American pronunciation, of course)

Actually--now that I think about it Hitler doesn't even have a "t" in the pronunciation, it's like "kitten" where there is no sound. [hɪ-lɛr] [kɪ-n]

If I said littler, probably slowly and carefully enunciated since it's a bit strange, there would be a -t- and three clear syllables. Almost litt-tel-er.

Certainly not less so for brittler. Hearing it with two syllables would make me think it of some rock star who speaks an unrefined form of BE.

it's like "kitten" where there is no sound. [hɪ-lɛr] [kɪ-n]

Isn't that Cockney?

In Cockney a glottal stop can act as an intervocalic /t/, as in bottle, butter [bɒʔəl, bʌʔʌ]. But I don't think that's what Nick (US) means, because you wouldn't find it directly before an /l/. It's probably an alveolar tap [ɾ], in which the tongue just briefly touches the roof of the mouth - also an allophone of /t/.

In RP, a /t/ before a syllabic /l/ usually has a 'lateral release', i.e. the plosive release stage coincides with the /l/. With non-syllabic /l/, or any other immediately following consonant, the /t/ is either not released, or turns into a glottal stop. It would seem that in brittler and littler, the originally syllabic /l/ in brittle and little is retained. Hence not only the /l/ but also the /t/ in brittler are different from those in Hitler.

I once knew someone whose surname was Littler. I think he pronounced it to rhyme with Hitler (I use this infinitive in a consecutive, not final, sense.)

@40: Agree with #29, #33 that little usually (but not always) suppletes to smaller or lesser

"suppletes"?

I once knew someone whose surname was Littler.

I once knew someone whose surname was Titlar. She pronounced it with two syllables. (She was my music teacher in grammar school. Her name was an endless source of giggling among her students.)

Do we really want to hear our TV weather reporter say, "It was more wet today than yesterday"? Why isn't the simpler form (wetter and wettest) better?

(Maybe some would prefer the preceding sentence to be: "Why isn't the simpler form . . . more good.")

#23 (and ##21, 53) I assume there must still exist a standard rule governing comparatives and superlatives. If so, you may be the only one here who assumes any such thing, except perhaps as a default starting point. [Sure you're not German?] Some such rule may exist for children and beginning language learners.

No one is suggesting the more form for the comparative where there are accepted "rules" or traditional English idioms to the contrary. Better, not more good. Smaller, not more little or littler (usually, except for children). No problem (by any measure) with wetter (unless one finds it confusing in a weather report). :-)

The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th ed., 5.84, says,

"The suffix -er usually signals the comparative form of an common adjective having one or two syllables {light-lighter}{merry-merrier}. .... [re three syllables] ... Some adjectives with two syllables take the -er suffix {lazy-lazier} {narrow-narrower}, but most two-syllable adjectives take more {more hostile} {more careless}. Two-syllable adjectives ending in -er, -le, -ow, -ure, or -y can typically use either the -er suffix or more."

Most of us don't have to follow the Chicago Manual of Style, even if it is a better authority than some dictionaries. I still don't like brittler, especially if it sounds at all like two syllables. It would be edited it out of a document [from my place of business].

Wasn't the Brittler one of Batman's nemeses?

Re #54.

Jurist:

Thanks for addressing the call (#23) for evidence concerning a standard rule for comparatives and superlatives.

Like you, I don't know how authoritative The Chicago Manual of Style is--or whether it is any better than the very reasonable-sounding authority Peter has cited (#36), for example.

But I think it would be only minor exaggeration to characterize the thrust of your arguments on THIS thread as meaning: There is no standard--everything is acceptable so long as the particular writer/speaker thinks his own preference "sounds good."

If that actually is the existing "rule," then I will stop (openly) complaining about the present state of comparatives and superlatives. But I am not convinced. I've seen no convincing proof that your view represents the rule.

In fact, some of what you've said must (in my opinion) mean either that you want no fixed standard at all, or that you support my opinion that the traditional rule should be observed.

You wrote in #18: "For me, . . . English usage [is] wrong . . . [if] it would be edited out of careful writing or, if heard by educated native speakers, would sound strange, uneducated, possibly foreign or perhaps like some other version of English."

To which I now say, "Thank you, Jurist, for supporting my view!"

(In any event, I'd still be very interested to see what is being taught in a fair sample of current textbooks. While textbooks would not necessarily be authoritative, we could at least see what is being taught on this subject.)

... your arguments on THIS thread as meaning: There is no standard--everything is acceptable so long as the particular writer/speaker thinks his own preference "sounds good."

No, that is not my position -- rather quite the contrary. I am disappointed in myself if I have posted anything that would lead you that that conclusion.


Is there a reason why your PM is not activated?
Mein LEO, Einstellungen, check the box for LEO-Mitteilungen.

For those with insomnia who just can't get enough of this, I've carried a portion of this discussion (concerning "littler") over to Wiktionary where there is an (imho) incorrect Usage note on the entry littler.

Click the "tearoom" link there, to see an offshoot of this discussion there (including a copy of #36 above, which has sparked some follow-up there).

I'm planning to follow this up further in the Tearoom, as I believe that many people use Search Engine hit counts incorrectly. However, this requires some background, and in preparation for that, I've created a table showing some interesting results. Note that this is just raw data, and I haven't written my remarks yet that will be based on that, but my point is basically that you have to be very careful when analyzing SE hit count data, and using such data to form conclusions about frequency.

For those of you that are hard-core geeks and wish to view the table in raw form, it's in my Wiktionary Sandbox. Yes, if I knew then what I know now, I would've done it differently, but it is what it is. If you wish to respond, please PM me, email me (see Profile), or respond here if you wish--please leave the Sandbox page alone for now, as it's very much in its preliminary stages. Have fun.

Re #57.

Jurist:

I hope no personal offense was taken. Absolutely none was intended. Simply, I am surprised by your position here, which I deem “permissive”--a concept you regularly oppose (e.g., #8 and #18) but which on this thread you seem to approve in practice.

Whereas on other threads (that I’ve seen) you have taken positions that might be called “strict constructionist,” here (#54, para. 1) you seem unwilling to recognize that standard rules govern comparatives and superlatives. That is permissive (especially in contrast to the assertions made that a standard does exist)--and till this thread I had not noticed such views in your posts.

My “sounds good” comment that you highlight (in #57) was based on your statement (#54) that you don’t like “brittler,” in part at least, because of how it sounds. (I was influenced also by other posters’ concerns about the word’s sound.)

I do not want to be guilty of misrepresenting others’ views, and if I have misstated any part of your position, I will gladly make the necessary corrections.

Sorry I can't write anything you can understand, apparently.
The position taken in the Chicago Manual quote is pretty good authority, if not exactly a rule. It's a bit too permissive for me though, as far as brittler is concerned.

Of course there are 'rules', and even Lewis Carroll agreed:

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

But rules tend to have fuzzy edges. 'Brittle' is clearly on a fuzzy edge. Hard cases make bad laws, as the jurists say.

You've just reminded me; it's time I read "Alice" again; five years or so have past since the last time.