LET'S SPEAK ENGLISH:
Broadcast: Wednesday, January 19, 1938 at 9:00 PM

Sixth Talk - Adjectives

Sixth Talk - Adjectives

II. Comparison of adjectives:
GOOD, BETTER, BEST
The BETTER (not the BEST) of two.
Incorrect use of MOST UNIQUE and MOST EXCELLENT
LATE, LATER, LATEST
LATTER, LAST

III. Difference between adjectives:

SORRY and ANGRY
RECENT and MODERN
PARTICULAR, SPECIAL, PRIVATE and PERSONAL
UGLY, CLUMSY and AWKWARD
USEFUL and INTERESTING

TRANSCRIPT: SIXTH TALK - ADJECTIVES

You know the story of the old lady who had a bad cold and couldn't pronounce properly the letter M. So when she was asked if she would have another helping of Christmas pudding she politely said "Well, if I bust, I bust!"

Last week I spoke about English spelling. This evening I'm going to tell you about some of the English adJectives.

We'll begin with MUCH and MANY. Some people don't know when to use one and when to use the other. The secret is that MUCH is used when you're talking of only one thing and MANY when you're talking of several things. When you write to your best girl you send MUCH love (in the singular) but MANY kisses (in the plural). Or, if someone sends· you an invitation, you accept it with MUCH pleasure and MANY thanks. Unless, of course, you don't like the person who invites you. Then you reply that, owing to a prior engagement," you MUCH regret your inability to attend.

Now when you come to the end of your letter it's often a problem to know when to use 'yours sincerely' and when to use 'yours faithfully'. As a general rule3, you use 'yours faithfully' when you write business letters. You use 'yours sincerely' when you're writing a personal letter to someone you don't know very well. Or 'yours truly' is equally correct. When you write to your rich uncle who might remember you in his will, you sign 'yours affectionately'. To your best girl you sign 'yours ever' or even 'your Bill' or 'Henry' or whatever your name is. Government officials always sign 'your obedient servant' - even when they're not obedient and act more like masters than servants. Nevertheless, if they like to pretend that they're obedient servants, let them : but no-one's really deceived.

One more point. When you write letters, please don't use commercial English. 'Yours of the fifth inst. to hand ref. your esteemed order' Why 'yours to hand'? Why 'ref. your order'? Why 'esteemed'? Why not say 'We have received your letter of the fifth of January regarding your order for which we thank you'? Doesn't it sound just a little more dignified? Any member of the Brighter English League who, in future uses 'inst.', 'prox.' or 'ult.' will be excluded from the League and deported to you know where!

We now come to the comparison of adjectives in English. QUICK, QUICKER, QUICKEST; BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST, Those two comparisons, by the way, always remind me of New York - QUICK, QUICKER, QUICKEST; BIG, BIGGER, BIGGEST.

Sometimes you get irregular comparisons like GOOD, BETTER, BEST, When you go to the office in the morning you wear a GOOD suit. When you have a holiday you wear, not a GOODER, but a BETTER suit. But Englishmen on holidays wear their worst clothes. You can always tell if an Englishman's happy by his clothes - the shabbier the happier. When you go to get married you wear, not your GOODEST, but your BEST clothes; and how uncomfortable you feel, too! In England at weddings, there's always a BEST man. He hands the ring to the bridegroom during the ceremony and gets him a strong brandy and soda beforehand.

Occasionally you hear someone say "I like them both but I like him BEST.'' That's wrong. If you have a choice between only two things, you must say the BETTER and not the BEST. "I like them both but I like him BETTER."

In the same way, if you have two sisters you must talk of the ELDER, not the ELDEST. When l was a boy, my sisters were all older than I was. But as time went by they missed out a few years when no-one was looking. So now I m older than they are. Isn't it curious that, when sisters get to be twenty-nine years old, they stay twenty-nine for a very long time? The best ten years of a woman's life are between between twenty-nine and thirty.

Another mistake people sometimes make is to talk about the MOST EXCELLENT or the MOST UNIQUE. If a thing's EXCELLENT , it excels above all others. It's already the best. You can't say the MOST BEST, so why say the MOST EXCELLENT?

The same applies to UNIQUE. If a thing's UNIQUE, there's only one and no other. My face is UNIQUE. It's quite different from anyone else's face. I wish it weren't. I should really like to have the face of Marlene Dietrich. But I haven't: my face is unfortunately UNIQUE. It isn't MORE UNIQUE or even the MOST UNIQUE: it's just UNIQUE. That's quite bad enough as it is.

Now there are some adjectives that have two sets of comparative forms. Let's take the word LATE. You have LATER or LATTER; LATEST or LAST. Now LATER means after a longer lapse of time. I'm sometimes LATE at the office and, if I've been out to a party the night before, I'm sometimes LATER than usual, Of course, that's all right for me: hut Heaven help you if you're LATE at the office.

But LATTER means the second of two and is usually contrasted with the word FORMER. Now I have clothes for both winter and summer - a thick overcoat and a bathing suit. In the winter I wear the FORMER and in summer the LATTER. Between ourselves I also wear a thick overcoat in the summer, too. In the winter I have to wear a heavy carpet. But that's another matter.

Now the LAST means the final one; while the LATEST means the last one up till now. The 'Tempest' was Shakespeare's LAST play, but Bernard Shaw published his LATEST play in 1937. My LAST chance is my final chance. But my LATEST chance implies that I keep on getting chances. I'm lucky, that's all.

Some people confuse the two adjectives SORRY and ANGRY. ANGRY expresses rage; you can talk of an ANGRY lion, but hardly of a SORRY lion; unless, of course, he's eaten someone who was tough and indigestible. A man's ANGRY when he's annoyed; afterwards, if he regrets his anger, he says he's SORRY.

SORRY's a useful word in English. If you tread on someone's foot, yon apologize by saying "I'm SORRY"; and no more is said. If you turn a corner and bump into someone and knock him down, "I'm SORRY" is all vou need.

Even if your careless when driving your car and have a head-on smash, killing a couple of people, all you say to the judge is "I am SORRY" and you'll walk out a free man. But I take no responsibility if "I'm SORRY" doesn't always work. It's safer not to have the accident.

RECENT and MODERN are two other adjectives that are often confused. RECRNT applies to things that happened a short time ago; MODERN to things that still exist and are not old-fashioned. A progressive ruler has MODERN, not RECENT ideas. But an earthquake that occurred last month was a RECENT earthquake. You can't say it was a MODERN earthquake. Earthquakes are never MODERN: they're as old as the hills.

Occasionally you find something that's both RECENT and MODERN. For example, a theory can be both RECENT and MODERN if it was recently discovered and is not old-fashioned. There's a MODERN theory in Palestine about deficits. In most countries a deficit is a disgrace. But in Palestine it's something to be worked for. If you haven't got a deficit you can't get a loan. So in Palestine a deficit is really a source of income.

Let's now turn to four words PARTICULAR, SPECIAL, PRIVATE and PERSONAL. PARTICULAR refers to something purposely selected and set apart from other things. At this PARTICULAR moment I'm sitting in the Jerusalem broadcasting studios enjoying myself immensely.

Talking of broadcasting, please remember that anything over the wireless is a broadcast - not a broadcasting. And that the difference between 'radio' and 'wireless' is that 'radio' is used in American and 'wireless' in English.

Now if PARTICULAR means something purposely selected, SPECIAL is something exceptional. If I write an urgent letter, I send it by a special messenger, not an ordinary messenger who has other letters to deliver. I may choose a PARTICULAR messenger - Ali or Moshe or John - to be the SPECIAL messenger. Do you see the difference?

PRIVATE is something of one's own, not for the public. I'd like to have a PRIVATE yacht but, so far, all I've got is a PRIVATE bicycle. You can say "My house is PRIVATE" but nobody'll believe you in Palestine. In Palestine no-one thinks anything of ringing you up on business at midnight: and you mustn't be at all surprised to find half a dozen complete strangers having a meeting in your dining room. It's all right! They only forgot to let you know.

PERSONAL is even more individual. A PERSONAL letter is distinct from a business letter and is meant to be opened only by the person to whom it's addressed, not by the office boy. A PERSONAL letter addressed to a Government official, however, is usually from someone who wants a job. I once received a PERSONAL letter written by a man not quite at ease in English. He had obviously consulted a dictionary and had put in the corner of the envelope the unfortunate word 'Selfish'.

Let' s now consider the words UGLY, CLUMSY an AWKWARD. They're all rather the same. When I was a boy at school, I'm sure I was UGLY and CLUMSY and AWKWARD I'm pretty much the same to-day; that's why I !alk to you over the wireless and not at a meeting. I'd hate to spoil your illusions.

It's great fun talking over the wireless. When I first started a few months ago. I thought I had to talk very loudly, as if I were adressing a huge crowd. It's just the opposite. One has to talk as if one was sitting with a girl m an arm-chair. I mean in another arm chair. One has to chat, not make a speech. One has to whisper into the microphone as if one were alone with a girl in a beautiful garden in the moonlight. If only the microphone. weren't so square and ugly! I think they ought to cover it over with a nice pink little celluloid ear so that one could feel as if one were really talking to a beautiful girl in the moonlight.

Alas! we're not supposed to be discussing beautiful girls but the words UGLY, AWKWARD and CLUMSY.

Now UGLY refers only to the appearance of something: an UGLY house or an UGLY painting. A pretty girl can have UGLY hands. But if she's wise, she wears gloves. CLUMSY hands are very different; they may be good-looking hut they're not very skillful. If you're a poultry breeder, you can employ an UGLY person but you shouldn't employ a CLUMSY person to pack eggs, unless you're very fond of omelettes.

A CLUMSY person is the same as an AWKWARD person. But you can also be in an AWKWARD or difficult situation. For example, if you're feeling in high spirits and knock someone's hat off for fun and find he's a plain clothes policeman that's an AWKWARD situation. The Government of Palestine's habitually in an AWKWARD situation. But that's another matter.

We'll now finish with USEFUL and INTERESTING. USEFUL is something which gives a material advantage; while INTERESTING is something which holds the attention.

A Beethoven sonata's INTERESTING but 'it's hardly USEFUL. On the other hand, a cow's USEFUL but, as a friend, not very INTERESTING. It's just because a cow's not so INTERESTING that it makes a very agreeable companion for people with tired minds; for people who want peace and quiet.

Now, if you ve a tired mind it's probably difficult for you to follow these weekly talks of mine. So the Brighter English League's going to make you a special offer. We'll enclose a free cow with the outline of my next talk.. You can sit with the cow during the week and relax. When your mind's rested you can listen to me on the following Wednesday. After you've spent a week with a cow you'll find anything I say full of Interest. At the end of this series of talks you can give the cow away to someone as a birthday present. You needn't be afraid of what the neighbours will say; we send out each cow in a plain envelope.

Good-night.