Is it incorrect to use "more gentle"?

Question

Most dictionaries list "gentler" as the comparative form of "gentle", but "more gentle" also sounds correct. According to this forum post, it is.

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EDIT March 14, 2020

Another question investigates the general rules for forming disyllabic comparatives: Conundrum: "cleverer" or "more clever", "simpler" or "more simple" etc. The conclusion is that, outside of words with some specific endings, a dictionary must be consulted for each case. In contrast to that question, this question addresses a specific word and the degree to which modern dictionaries are correct in defining its comparative.

Answer 1

An interesting (to me) side issue in the "more gentle" versus "gentler" discussion involves the potential for ambiguity. The phrase "more gentle" can have two meanings: "gentle relative to X" (where X is the object or standard of comparison) or "additional gentle." The word gentler has only the first meaning. So, at the outset, it should be obvious that gentler is an unambiguous option when you're trying to say "gentle relative to X" and that it is not an option at all when you're trying to say "additional gentle."

In situations where the intended meaning is "gentle relative to X," the broader context usually provides sufficient information to ensure that hearers or readers can quickly surmise the correct meaning. Moreover, in speech, I have noticed that many people tend to stress different syllables when using "more gentle" in the sense of "additional gentle" than when using it in the sense of "gentle relative to X." Consider this potentially ambiguous sentence:

Patients who suffer complications from the initial infection require more gentle treatment.

On its face, the sentence could be using "more gentle" in the sense of "additional gentle" or in the sense of "gentle relative to X" (in this case, X might refer to the gentleness of their previous treatment or to the gentleness with which patients are treated for other conditions or to some other point of comparison). But in speech, many speakers would clarify the sense they had in mind by the stress they gave the phrase "more gentle treatment": "more gentle treatment" if the sense were "additional gentle treatment" or "more gentle treatment" if the sense were "gentle treatment relative to X."

In writing, of course, no such vocal cues are available. In their absence, some writers follow a convention of punctuation to resolve potential ambiguity: when a phrase of the form "more Y" (where Y is an adjective modifying a following noun) may be misread by some readers, they add a hyphen ("more-Y") when the intended sense is "Y relative to X" but leave the phrase open (more Y") when the intended sense is "additional Y." The Chicago Manual of Style, sixteenth edition (2010) frames the convention as follows (at 7.85):

compounds with more, most, less, least, and very [are] usually open unless ambiguity threatens.

Chicago then gives this pair of illustrative examples (involving most rather than more):

the most skilled workers (most in number)

but

the most-skilled workers (most in skill)

If every writer followed this convention, readers would never be left to wonder which sense of "more Y" the writer intended. But in my experience, a great many writers do not observe the convention—and for this reason, ambiguous instances of "more Y" are quite common. In the case of "more gentle," if the writer has shown no sign elsewhere in the book or article of abiding by the distinction between "more Y" and "more-Y," it seems to me that—in potentially ambiguous contexts—"gentler" is a better option than "more gentle" where the actual intended meaning is "gentle relative to X," and "additional gentle" is a better option than "more gentle" where the actual intended meaning is "additional gentle."

Answer 2

It is not incorrect, though the form isn't just frequently used.

Examples from this article:

A: Did you say it was less hot in there?

B: No, I said it was more hot.

There’s nothing more dull than having to listen to him.

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Edit:

More examples from another article:

Here are the conventional rules for forming the comparative form of a one-syllable adjective in English.

...

Now for the exceptions to the rule.

Sometimes using more instead of -er with a one-syllable adjective is an acceptable stylistic choice:

1. The writer wishes to emphasize the comparison. “He promised to paint the chair pink, but when the paint dried, it was more red than pink.”

2. The one-syllable adjective occurs with an adjective of two or more syllables. “The lecture was more dull and lengthy than the previous one.”

3. It is easier for the speaker to say. “Both views may be right, but mine is more right than yours.” (Other one-syllable words that compare with more are real and wrong.)

It is of some note that this article says "conventional" and "stylistic", which supports that even other combinations of a "more/less" and a monosyllabic adjective not falling within the scope of the exceptions listed above are not grammatically incorrect though they are usually avoided or advised against, and it is no more than a matter of convention and style.

Answer 3

"gentler" can avoid ambiguity. For instance, the sentence "I want more gentle detergent" can be taken as "I want the amount of gentle detergent to be larger" or "I want the degree to which the detergent is gentle to be larger". "I want gentler detergent" clearly means the latter. Moreover, if you consistently use "gentler" in the latter case, then "I want more gentle detergent" can be taken to mean "I want the amount of gentle detergent to be larger".

Answer 4

Generally accepted view is that there is a nuance between “(a) the leg of the table and (b) “the table’s leg”. In the same way as there is a nuance between (a) “the more gentle detergent” and (b) “the gentler detergent”.

Although this origin is disputed by some linguists[1], In both cases, the (a)s represent the Anglo-Norman (analytic) influence and the (b)s the Anglo-Saxon (synthetic) influence. Anglo-Norman origins tends to indicate a softer approach and the Anglo-Saxon tends to indicate a more factual/direct approach.

Monosyllabic adjectives usually take the –er form. Adjectives with three and more syllables take the “more” form. Disyllabic adjectives may take either[2] but with a tendency/trend towards the analytic “more” [3] but not in all cases.

Google Ngrams for more gentle,gentler,more common,commoner https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=more+gentle%2Cgentler%2Cmore+common%2Ccommoner&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cmore%20gentle%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cgentler%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cmore%20common%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Ccommoner%3B%2Cc0

Despite this both are correct and “being more popular” is not the same as “being better”.

[1] “More Support for More-Support: The role of processing constraints on the choice between synthetic and analytic comparative forms” By Britta Mondorf

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=6VA6AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=English+%22the+more+comparative%22&source=bl&ots=fJcBP8iaIi&sig=ACfU3U0CXbDPsFXFbYtt1ZawFxcEjwoXzA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwixirKAoJroAhUTnVwKHbX8AuEQ6AEwB3oECEsQAQ#v=onepage&q=English%20%22the%20more%20comparative%22&f=false

[2]

ibid. König (1994:540) states that the choice between the synthetic vs. analytic comparative (...) depends primarily on the syllable structure of the adjective. Monosyllabic adjectives take the inflectional form: big, bigger, biggest; adjectives with three syllables take the analytic form: intelligent, more intelligent, most intelligent. Disyllabic adjectives accept both strategies.

[3]

ibid Chapter 5 investigates the impact of morphological determinants and shows how growing morphological complexity is paralleled by an increased use of the analytic more-variant.