Wrier and wriest

[Jacki]

Re the SWARTHIER challenge game three days ago, wrier was rare and wriest was common. How does that follow?

[mkenuk]

I've suggested before that, in my opinion, comparative and superlative adjectives should always have the same classification - either both common or both uncommon - the latter in the case of wrier and wriest I would suggest.

Another pair that turned up in the swarthier game was rawer and rawest?
Can you have degrees of rawness? Can one piece of meat be 'rawer' than another?
One steak can be served 'rarer' than another perhaps, but rare is not the same as raw.
Just a thought.

[TRex]

Raw in the sense of untrained could certainly have degrees of rawness, IMO.

[mkenuk]

Indeed, there are many different meanings of the word raw - the COD lists eight - but the first /principal meaning, I would think,  refers to uncooked food.

I suppose a phrase like ' training the rawest recruits' might be considered common.

Digressing slightly, another 'problem' with these words is  pronouncing them as two syllables without turning the 'w' into an 'r'!
 
Not easy for a native speaker - a task of herculean magnitude for many Asians!!

[anona]

I wonder how many people read your last entry, Mike, without trying out "rawest"?

I don't think there's a hint of an R when I say it, but I realised I say rawist, not rawest. (And then checked online pronunciations of "nicest" and found that that's probably correct.)