Friendlier/more friendly

[Little_LIS]

Hey,

I've come across " friendlier" in an English educational material.

So, which is more common in usage; more friendly or friendlier ?

Thanks in advance.

 

[BellaDancer]

Friendlier.

 

[entangledbank]

It seems to be evenly split: 450 000 Google hits for "friendlier", 315 000 for "more friendly". I feel no difference between them - I could use either, equally easily. Native speakers do differ a lot on how they use comparative forms of polysyllabic adjectives. Some people will have strong preferences for one or the other.

 

[BellaDancer]

It seems to be evenly split: 450 000 Google hits for "friendlier", 315 000 for "more friendly". I feel no difference between them - I could use either, equally easily.

Okay, context context context.

Whatever Google says, in the most usual context,

John is friendlier than Bill.
John is more friendly than Bill.

friendlier is both more correct and more common.

 

[wonderwhy]

friendlier is both more correct and more common.

It might be more common, BD, but that hardly makes it more correct. he is way way more common than she.

 

[BellaDancer]

It might be more common, BD, but that hardly makes it more correct. he is way way more common than she.

he is way way more common than she

That would fall into the non sequitur category. And of course there are more women than men. But we digress.

I did not say that friendlier was more correct because it is more common. I said that it is both more correct and more common.

 

[wonderwhy]

That would fall into the non sequitur category. And of course there are more women than men. But we digress.

I did not say that friendlier was more correct because it is more common. I said that it is both more correct and more common.

Regardless of your manner of justification, BD, it simply isn't more correct. What does "more correct" even mean?

Google's a good start but there are some problems that make it not completely trustworthy when it comes to numbers. Better to go to corpus studies, don't you reckon?

 

[panjandrum]

BNC
friendlier - 51
more friendly -73
The count for more friendly includes examples that are not equivalent to friendlier.
COCA
friendlier - 396
more friendly -185

BNC - British National Corpus
COCA - Corpus of Contemporary American English

 

[BellaDancer]

It is my opinion that in the context specified, friendlier is both more common and more correct.

My opinion, and that of thousands of other participants, based on our own experiences of language, are posted in this forum. Anyone can search for a word on the internet. What is most valuable in this forum is the lived experience, understanding and opinion of users of language.

 

[wonderwhy]

It is my opinion that in the context specified, friendlier is both more common and more correct.

My opinion, and that of thousands of other participants, based on our own experiences of language, are posted in this forum. Anyone can search for a word on the internet. What is most valuable in this forum is the lived experience, understanding and opinion of users of language.

Are you offering this as a justification that friendlier is more correct than the other?

The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English cautions that native speakers are notoriously bad at both describing and analyzing their language.

Given the unflagging support over the last few centuries for all those errant prescriptions, I'd have to agree.

But this isn't really, specifically about grammar rules. You're just expressing your preference for what is the most common choice for your particular dialect, are you not?

 

[brian]

Yes, I imagine that what BellaDancer means by "more correct" is that it sounds more natural to her - which we certainly can't disagree with. However, this also might have been what led her to believe that it's also "more common" - which I would disagree with. We tend to assume that what sounds natural to us is more common since, well, it's most natural to hear and say what we most commonly hear and say.

However, it's impossible to say which is more common since, first off, we'd have to specify which register we are talking about (formal writing? informal speaking?), which groups of speakers (young? old? educated?), etc. Plus, we have no data but Google.

I think my vote goes with entangledbank, i.e. I have no personal preference. They both sound equally natural.

I think the most we can say is that both are correct, though speakers may disagree on which sounds more natural.

 

[london31]

Wich is more correct between them?

Dogs are more frienly than cats?
OR
Dogs are friendlier than cats?

 

[Andygc]

There's no such thing as "more correct'. You can use either form with "friendly".

 

[Parla]

Dogs are more friendly than cats.
Dogs are friendlier than cats.

Personally, I prefer the first.