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Is "randomest" even a word? People do tend to use it very casually. If "randomest" is a word, so should be "randomer", isn't it?

I personally think it should be "more random" and "most random". Am I right?

And what about the word "lame"? Does the same apply to "lame" too?

Jimi Oke
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n0nChun
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5 Answers5

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Update: answer has been reordered and extended.

General rules

A good answer concerning general rules for comparatives and superlatives is "More clear" vs "Clearer": when to use "more" instead of "-er"?

  • one syllable: add suffix -est or -er.
  • many syllables: use most or more.
  • two syllables and ends -y: change y to -iest or -ier

Lamer

The word lame has acquired new meanings in my lifetime which mean you can't use "lamer" to indicate the "more lame" without serious risk of being misunderstood.

Randomer

Randomest and randomer are not words in general use. I'd not use them. I'd say "most random" or "more random" - whilst feeling uneasy about my mathematical credentials.

Context is important

Before you can decide whether it is appropriate to use "random", "more random" or "randomer", you have to consider which meaning of random you are using and how formal the context is.

Oxford online says:

adjective
1 made , done , or happening without method or conscious decision:
apparently random violence
- Statistics governed by or involving equal chances for each item:
a random sample of 100 households
- (of masonry) with stones of irregular size and shape.
2 informal odd, unusual, or unexpected:
the class was hard but he was so random that it was always fun

In (very) informal use, it might well be acceptable to say something like "I saw the randomest thing on the way home!"

In ordinary use (outside maths), people do talk about degrees of relative randomness. We often talk of randomness as if it were a measure of disorder. So in this case we can say one thing is more random than another (meaning less ordered, or where the order is harder to discern).

I'm not a statistician so I don't know, but I suspect in statistics, random is an absolute. This means something is either random or it is not. There shouldn't be degrees of randomness. If you are a statistician writing a statistical paper you will know whether it is ever correct to write "more random".

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RedGrittyBrick
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  • To a computer scientist, there are degrees of randomness in the sense that different random generators can comply with statistical tests of randomness to differing degrees. – Neil Coffey Mar 21 '11 at 13:29
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    @Neil. Don't computer scientists talk of pseudo-random number generators? – RedGrittyBrick Mar 21 '11 at 14:07
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    @RedGrittyBrick Yes. But particular design PRNGs can be more (or less) random than others. Neither I think "random" when used in its strict meaning can be a relative term on its own, but it can be compared against. "This pseudo-random-number generator provides more random output than that." – user Mar 21 '11 at 14:32
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    Where the context is clear, you can just say "random". Not all programmers/researchers actually agree about the "random" vs "pseudo-random" distinction: "random" is arguably a theoretical notion, and even in the case of physical phenomena that we consider to be "truly random" such as radioactive decay, what we effectively mean by "truly random" is "we do not know how to distinguish this phenomenon from our theoretical concept of 'true randomness'". So arguably, so-called "true" random number generators lie somewhere on the same scale as "pseudo-random" generators. – Neil Coffey Mar 21 '11 at 15:00
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    I've found that many people seem to use random when they mean 'distributed according to a uniformly random distribution'. If the phenomenon is random, but drawn from a distribution with less entropy, say a Gaussian distribution with a small standard deviation, then people say that it's 'less random' because the value is more predictable. The usage is technically incorrect, but common none-the-less. – JCooper Mar 21 '11 at 15:42
  • The issue with computer science being random is based upon the fact that a computer cant randomly choose something, it has to work from programmed rules, therefore if you know the rules you can predict the outcome. There are ways of producing numbers that could never be guessed, such as using the stock index for a given day etc but these are still based on rules and therefore still not truly random. –  Mar 21 '11 at 16:09
  • Why on earth would you say that random is an absolute? That makes no sense to me. It's like saying risky is an absolute. Practically everything in life has some degree of chance to it. Is the outcome of a given football game random? It's somewhat random. That's life. – Jason Orendorff Mar 21 '11 at 18:20
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    @Jason: In short: Dictionary says Random = "governed by or involving equal chances for each item". Hence when chances are not equal, it isn't random. Note use of "strictly" and "real world" in my answer. I may revise to clarify. – RedGrittyBrick Mar 22 '11 at 10:42
  • Thanks, @RedGrittyBrick, the answer now is complete in most respects. – n0nChun Mar 22 '11 at 12:00
  • @RedGrittyBrick Come now. The main definition is "made, done, or happening without method or conscious decision"; what you quoted is a narrow technical sense restricted to statistics. – Jason Orendorff Mar 22 '11 at 13:04
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    @Jason I don't disagree, except that I think @Red's definition is a better "first" (main, primary) definition. All the dictionaries are just randomly picking which definition goes first. – jbelacqua Mar 23 '11 at 03:48
  • "Random" in mathematics doesn't necessarily mean a uniform distribution (where all outcomes are equally likely); it simply means the outcome is uncertain. This idea is well explained by this Numberphile video. A mathematician would probably avoid saying "less random" or "more random", not because randomness is absolute, but because a two-dimensional "more"/"less" scale is imprecise. @JCooper I just realized you'd already addressed this very point after I posted my comment, but I think the video is helpful. – Graham Apr 09 '19 at 22:22
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I think there is another use of "randomest" that hasn't been mentioned. This is the use that occurs in a sentence like "the randomest thing happened to me on my way home from the mall".

I believe this is just a form of the superlative that is applied loosely or metaphorically. It is a fairly common usage, though typically among younger speakers and writers. I'm not sure whether it should go in the "slang" bucket, be seen as an alternate definition, or just be considered incorrect usage.

On the other hand, in poetic or non-technical usage, I suppose all bets are off. "Here is the most infinitely random of random numbers!" This is really just a gross exaggeration, allowed by the machinery of grammar, though perhaps logically nonsensical.

I agree with @RedGrittyBrick that randomness in a mathematical sense seems like it ought to be used as an absolute, but also with the commenters in that it often isn't. I can understand using "more random" when talking about CS, but "most random" or "randomest" in the same sense seems wrong. When you have reached actual randomness, it doesn't accept comparative qualifications with equally(?) random randomness.

jbelacqua
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Neither is correct. Randomness doesn't come in degrees. Something is either random or not random. It can't be "more random." However, you could say it is "more likely to be random."

Mary Barnes
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  • You're saying that 'randomness is not gradable. But 'random' is gradable. The informal concept of degree of randomness can be formalized as statistical variance. The larger the (statistical) variance, the more random a selection of points from a distribution seems. – Mitch Apr 09 '19 at 20:03
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I can't speak for the American language (benchmark Webster's) but in the English language ...(benchmark OED Oxford English dictionary) , it is random, more random, most random. Randomer is slang for random person.

markiewarkie
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Thanks jgbelacqua!

I think there is another use of "randomest" that hasn't been mentioned. This is the use that occurs in a sentence like "the randomest thing happened to me on my way home from the mall".

I was going to point out that one use of Randomest is that people tend to judge random events on the possibility of the event happening, for instance saying "On the way home a black cat randomly crossed my path" the same person could say "The randomest / most random thing that ever happened to me was when I was walking home from the mall and a green and yellow cat crossed my path"

Obviously the chances of a black cat crossing your path are significantly higher than a Green and Yellow cat, so in this way we can rank random things on their probability of happening to determine the "randomest".

I think randomness is a concept that some people struggle to understand, as is infinity so this is where words like randomest start.