(just) as much ... as ... Prescriptive or Descriptive?

[M56]

In which situation would you, personally, use number one over number two?

1. This is as much unnecessary as it is undesirable.

2. This is as unnecessary as it is undesirable.

[Mister Micawber]

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Personally, I would not touch #1 with a ten-foot parser. Isn't 'unnecessary' non-gradable (lexically speaking, that is)?

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[M56]

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Personally, I would not touch #1 with a ten-foot parser. Isn't 'unnecessary' non-gradable (lexically speaking, that is)?

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I see.

<Isn't 'unnecessary' non-gradable (lexically speaking, that is)? >

It may be, but pragmatically...

Do you ever use "it is extremely unnecessary"?

[M56]

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Personally, I would not touch #1 with a ten-foot parser. Isn't 'unnecessary' non-gradable (lexically speaking, that is)?

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How about:


TOTALLY UNNECESSARY

PROBABLY UNNECESSARY

COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY

ONLY UNNECESSARY

OFTEN UNNECESSARY

ALSO UNNECESSARY

WHOLLY UNNECESSARY

SO UNNECESSARY

BOTH UNNECESSARY

ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY

EVEN UNNECESSARY

HOW UNNECESSARY

AS UNNECESSARY

A BIT UNNECESSARY

LARGELY UNNECESSARY

Etc.

And:

How Necessary is Oxygen?

How necessary is it for me to "bubble" my Earth Juice?

[Steven D]

How about:


TOTALLY UNNECESSARY

PROBABLY UNNECESSARY

COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY

ONLY UNNECESSARY

OFTEN UNNECESSARY

ALSO UNNECESSARY

WHOLLY UNNECESSARY

SO UNNECESSARY

BOTH UNNECESSARY

ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY

EVEN UNNECESSARY

HOW UNNECESSARY

AS UNNECESSARY

A BIT UNNECESSARY

LARGELY UNNECESSARY

Etc.

And:

How Necessary is Oxygen?

How necessary is it for me to "bubble" my Earth Juice?

Of course. - nothing wrong with those.

That was absolutely unnecessary.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...unnecessary%22+

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&l...2+&btnG=Search

[M56]

Thanks for the links, xmode. What do you think of this?

In which situation would you, personally, use number one over number two?

1. This is as much unnecessary as it is undesirable.

2. This is as unnecessary as it is undesirable.

[Steven D]

Thanks for the links, xmode. What do you think of this?

In which situation would you, personally, use number one over number two?

1. This is as much unnecessary as it is undesirable.

2. This is as unnecessary as it is undesirable.

To me, number 1 is for emphasis. You have stronger feelings about something with that statement. Number 1 could be heard as having more emotion attached to it. That's the way it seems to go often. Choices are often made based on emphasis and relative degrees of formality and informality. There are other things I guess, but those seem to come up quite often.

The speaker may or may not be aware that he or she is making these choices. It depends.

[Steven D]

A student used "more foremost" as a comparative in her writing. Now, I could tell something was wrong with that. It just didn't sound right. And sure enough, it's not gradable.


Has anyone memorized that list of adjectives?

[M56]

To me, number 1 is for emphasis. You have stronger feelings about something with that statement. Number 1 could be heard as having more emotion attached to it. That's the way it seems to go often. Choices are often made based on emphasis and relative degrees of formality and informality. There are other things I guess, but those seem to come up quite often.

The speaker may or may not be aware that he or she is making these choices. It depends.

That's exactly as I see it. What worries me is when native speakers reject such constructions because they demand that the adjective in question is absolute... ungradable.

[Steven D]

That's exactly as I see it. What worries me is when native speakers reject such constructions because they demand that the adjective in question is absolute... ungradable.

If an adjective is not gradable, and someone uses it as a gradable adjective, I believe I'll notice it. In other words, I can separate language which does not sound good because it is not usual, and probably incorrect, and language which might seem to be "not okay" in a rather small "technical" way, but in reality really is - OKAY.

So it seems that although "unnecessary" is an ungradable adjective, it can be modified with an extreme adverb. However, I would not do the same, for example, with "foremost".

I can hear myself saying "that was completely unnecessary". - no problem. If one says there's something wrong with it, this, in my opinion, means that one learned English after having acquired it as a first language. One should trust that one speaks correctly. I'm not relearning anything, thank you - if you know what I mean. My language is correct.