Hey Kids! You ready to learn about a fascinating minute detail of grammar?
[YOU BET!!]
Well, giddyup! Today's topic is Gradable and Non-gradable Adjectives, or whatever you want to call them!
[WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE!?]
Good thing you asked grammaroos! Gradable and...well, those words above mean that there's a difference between an adjective that can be modified, like "tall" and one that can't, like "unique." I can say "I'm very tall" but I can't say "I'm very unique."
[WHY NOT?]
Good thing you asked, grammaroos. I don't really know. "Very unique" sounds kind of clumsy and silly, but there really doesn't seem to be a rule about these things. Of course, that doesn't prevent textbooks from trying to teach it to advanced TEFL students. And their poor teachers are left holding the bag when some student wants to know why you can't say "more wonderful." Can you say "Because it just sounds wrong. That's why!" kids?
[BECAUSE IT JUST JUST SOUNDS WRONG!]
Good work. And speaking of that, my fellow English teachers had a question about "right" and "wrong." "When can something be very, very wrong?" they wanted to know. I didn't know what to tell them. I guessed that it should only be used in spoken English, and even then only when you really, really want to exaggerate.
[THAT BITES!]
You bet kids, but it's all I could do. Making it even harder is the Bulgarian language, where there are rules, too, but they're different. Something in Bulgarian can, for example, be more or most first. I have no idea how, but my tutor tells it like it is.
[WIERD!]
So that's this week's confusion, geeky grammaroos. See you next time!
Posted by Rob at February 18, 2004 07:11 PMI can think of a few things that are very, very wrong. And I wouldn't be exaggerating.
Posted by: Owen at February 21, 2004 07:15 PM