Which is correct: "spottier" or "more spotty"?
For example: The poison dart frog was _________ than the glass frog.
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5Leaving aside which one is more correct or frequent, I think most people would reword it: 'x has more spots than y.' Note also that 'spotty' has another meaning in AmE. – Heartspring Oct 25 '23 at 23:58
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Do you not learn a rule of thumb on when to use --er and when to use more -- ? – GEdgar Oct 26 '23 at 01:14
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Related:Why isn't 'oranger' correct even though it follows being a one- or two-syllable word for adding the comparative inflection? and Conundrum: "cleverer" or "more clever", "simpler" or "more simple" etc – Mari-Lou A Oct 26 '23 at 09:09
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Does this answer your question? "More clear" vs "Clearer": when to use "more" instead of "-er"? – Mari-Lou A Oct 26 '23 at 09:10
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1Flora/fauna are not called 'spotty' – they are 'spotted'. 'Spotty' means something else in BrE too. – Weather Vane Oct 26 '23 at 09:17
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Don't confuse: Have more spots with something being spotty. spotty means something else in any English. Cell phone coverage in my area is spotty. – Lambie Oct 26 '23 at 14:44
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So as per Weather Vane's observation, 'more heavily spotted' with this example. 'The taller witch was spottier / more spotted' is a workable example. I'd say 'spottier' better fits the less than formal register involved. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 26 '23 at 15:20
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Two-syllable adjectives ending in -y take their comparative and superlative in "-ier" and "-iest". (Practical English Usage, Michael Swan)
- easy, happy
Although this rule has not been perfectly adhered to in the past, there has been an unabated trend towards conformity of usage. This can be seen in the following ngrams.
The choice is therefore yours, but taking into account the trend shown by the ngrams (it spans more than a century), you might consider that you are making a contribution to the language by choosing "spottier".
LPH
- 20,841
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Interesting. I would guess that the variation would be influenced by a few factors including ease of pronunciation, familiarity of the adjective, and any possible ambiguities or similar-sounding words. But not sure if the evidence supports any of those. In particular not sure why "more comfy" is so popular - maybe because people aren't comfortable enough with the word "comfy" to make "comfier". – Stuart F Oct 26 '23 at 08:36
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@StuartF As I thought about testing "comfy" I had an even worse apprehension: I suspected that the most frequent form would be by far "more comfy" and I was not much surprised to see that in fact it trails not too far behind. I suppose that in my mind the idea that the ending does not denote the usual idea of "being characterized by" (since "comfy" is an abbreviation) induced the feeling that this adjective did not answer to the pattern (quite subjective since y in "pretty" is not a suffix of that sort, and yet I do not have the same feeling about this latter). – LPH Oct 26 '23 at 09:35
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"Two-syllable adjectives ending in -y take their comparative and superlative in "-ier" and "-iest"." Yes. Cell phone coverage is spottier here than in your area. However, animals have spots and are not said to be spottier; they are said to have more spots than some other animal. The poison dart frog has more spots than the glass frog. – Lambie Oct 26 '23 at 14:47
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There are exceptions: likelier / more likely [Google ngrams] // poorlier, more poorly // fierier, more fiery // guiltier, more guilty (just about; false positives with 'more' the quantifier render this unsafe). And as for musclier .... – Edwin Ashworth Oct 26 '23 at 15:36