But within a set of pregnant women, some may be further along than others and one can very legitimately say that one is more pregnant than another. As the saying goes, you can't be a little pregnant, you either are or are not. You can say 'the final countdown' but not 'the most final countdown'. It cannot be 'more unique' - it is already unique, and that's as far as it goes.Ībsolute adjectives do not allow being made into comparative or superlative. If there is only one of a particular kind, it is unique. The semantics of the adjective allow comparative and superlative syntactic constructions easily.Īnother example of an absolute adjective is 'unique'. This one is red while this one is redder. The color 'red' is a gradable adjective because the redness of an object can be placed on a scale. An absolute adjective either has the quality or does not, with no in between. A gradable adjective has degrees of that quality. 'More correct' is semantically questionable and you probably want to word it differently.Īdjectives can be described as 'gradable' or 'absolute'. It is also possible that a rector or vicar is also a canon or a dean (or even a retired bishop) and in those cases "Rector" or "Vicar" would not be the truly correct form of address, however the relevant one would still be more correct than "Reverend".įortunately people worry about such things less now than they used to do but the distinction between correct and more correct forms of address still exists. In general it is more correct to use "Vicar" but, sometimes, a parish priest is a "rector" rather than a "vicar" and calling a rector "Vicar" is not really correct (although you can't tell the difference if you haven't been told). For instance it is quite common to call a Church of England parish priest "Reverend" when speaking to them but Debrett's would not recognise this as the correct form of address (it is correct in the US but not in the UK). "More correct" is certainly used when talking of forms of address.
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