With regard to the using of adjectives and other qualifying words, care must be taken, or your language will frequently amount to absurdity or nonsense.  Let the following general remark, which is better than a dozen rules, put you on your guard.  Whenever you utter a sentence, or put your pen on paper to write, weigh well in your mind the meaning of the words which you are about to employ.  See that they convey precisely the ideas which you wish to express by them, and thus you will avoid innumerable errors.  In speaking of a man, we may say, with propriety, he is very wicked, or exceedingly lavish, because the terms wicked and lavish are adjectives that admit of comparison; but, if we take the words in their literal acceptation, there is a solecism in calling a man very honest, or exceedingly just, for the words honest and just, literally admit of no comparison.  In point of fact, a man is honest or dishonest, just or unjust:  there can be no medium or excess in this respect. Very correct, very incorrect, very right, very wrong, are common expressions; but they are not literally proper.  What is not correct, must be incorrect; and that which is not incorrect, must be correct:  what is not right, must be wrong; and that which is not wrong, must be right.  To avoid that circumlocution which must otherwise take place, our best speakers and writers, however, frequently compare adjectives which do not literally admit of comparison:  “The most established practice;” “The most uncertain method;” “Irving, as a writer, is far more accurate than Addison;” “The metaphysical investigations of our philosophical grammars, are still more incomprehensible to the learner.”  Comparisons like these, should generally be avoided; but sometimes they are so convenient in practice, as to render them admissible.  Such expressions can be reconciled with the principles of grammar, only by considering them as figurative.

Comparative members of sentences, should be set in direct opposition to each other; as, “Pope was rich, but Goldsmith was poor.”  The following sentences are inaccurate:  “Solomon was wiser than Cicero was eloquent.”  “The principles of the reformation were deeper in the prince’s mind than to be easily eradicated.”  This latter sentence contains no comparison at all; neither does it literally convey any meaning.  Again, if the Psalmist had said, “I am the wisest of my teachers,” he would have spoken absurdly, because the phrase would imply, that he was one of his teachers.  But in saying, “I am wiser than my teachers,” he does not consider himself one of them, but places himself in contradistinction to them.

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