The One, it's probably the best book I've read in a while.

Hi. James from engVid.

Today I want to talk to you about, funny enough, The One.

And why I say: "The One" is usually when we talk about superlatives and comparatives,

the number one comes up quite often.

And, now, I'm not going to do your standard lesson on what the comparative is and the

superlative is; you probably are aware of this, but I would like to point out five exceptions

to the general rules.

So, I'm going to quickly go over the difference between comparative and superlative, and then

go into the exceptions.

Are you ready?

Let's go to the board.

So, E, you got my five for me.

Cool.

You're going to notice on the board I have the number "1" written out repetitively.

There's a reason for it, and we'll get into it.

But let's start looking at: What is a "superlative"?

I like to look at superlative as in Superman.

Superman is the best, the strongest, the fastest, la, la, la - number one.

So, when you think of a superlative, think of the highest or the best amount.

Or, because it's extreme, it could be the worst.

Now, I've used a couple of them already, but we're going to go to the board and get a little

deeper into them.

So, it could be number one at the top or number one at the bottom.

Okay?

"Comparative" is when we look at two things and we want to say there's a difference between

them.

"He is bigger than she is" or "James is bigger than Mr. E" - comparing the two.

So, with a comparative, you generally find that we add "er" to the end of the word to

tell you that something is being compared to something else.

Okay?

Comparative, and you'll see "er": "bigger", "smaller", "smarter", "taller".

Cool?

We got that.

And with a superlative, we add usually "est".

Right?

And the "est" is for the "biggest", "strongest", "longest", "fastest", and it will be the number

one in its category.

And remember what I said: It could be the number one as in the best, like the best one

position, or in the lowest position number one.

Are you ready?

So let's go to the board and find out what our exceptions are.

You might be surprised, but they're actually quite often used, and actually quite often

misunderstood.

So, the first one we're going to look at is the "best".

If you're from Japan, it's "ichiban"; if you're from Mexico or not even Mexico, any Latino

country, it's "numero uno" or we say "number one".

That's what the best is.

Kind of simple, right?

And we know what "good" is, because what's the opposite of "good"?

"Bad".

"Good" is something we like.

Now, why this is an exception is because usually, if you remember rightly, when I said "biggest",

we start with "big" and we go to "biggest", and we go "bigger".

So, we use the root word and we just add the "er" or the "est".

But when we look over here, if you look at my chart, increasing-meaning it's getting

better-there's an improvement going on - we start with the word "good".

That has nothing to do with the word "best".

Very different.

And this is why it's an exception; it doesn't follow the rule of: Take the root word and

add "er" or "est".

It's a completely different word, but they are related in we say something starts off

"good" - something you like, like 70%...

75% on a test is good.

It's not great, but it's good, right?

Or 80%.

"Better", and this is where we talk about the improvement; "er" means a comparative...

A comparison, and we're looking at two different things and comparing them; while "good" is

75%, "better" than that is 90%.

There's a difference between the two numbers; it's an improvement or an increase.

But the "best" would be 100%.

Right?

See, if you get 100%, you can't get much better than 100%, and we say that's the "best".

Now, these numbers aren't real.

I'm not saying each number corresponds to these things, but what I'm trying to give

you an idea is how they're related.

"Good", we like "good"; but what's better than good is something "better", or more,

or increase; and the "best" is number one, just like The One, my book.

Now, on that scale, this is good.

Think of an angel.

Right?

"Good", "better", "best".

Love you, love you, love you - angels.

Now, let's talk about the opposite.

It's my little devil; you got to have a devil.

So, "good" is good, so "bad", it's got to be the opposite.

And, once again, we talked about the exception for the comparatives and superlative rule

simply because "bad" and "worst" are not words that go together; they have no root.

The only thing that joins them together is this word here, and even still, you can't

see how you go from here to here.

That's what the problem is because students will go: "Teacher, why is it 'worst'?

Why is it 'bad' and 'worse'?

Why is it not 'bad', and 'badder', and 'baddest'?"

Right?

But these are the way we compare it in English.

So, "bad"...

If you had a test and you got 49%, you didn't quite pass, that would be pretty bad.

Right?

See, you wouldn't know what to say, that's why my little guy has no mouth.

He's just like: "I don't know.

This is bad."

All right?

But "worse" than that would be 39.

And if you notice, it's the complete opposite of when we talk about "good", "better", "best"

where the arrow is going up for improvement.

This is a decrease in...

Well, I wouldn't say "decrease".

This is...

I'm going to say de-evolution, which is a big word, but we're declining.

Okay?

We're going down from the condition of what would be it's not so good, we're going to

something worse that's...

I like even less, and then when we say "worst", it's the number one.

You notice here I said: "1,000,000,000 last".

Crazy, right?

What's 1,000,000,000?

Or, you know what?

Let's say this.

Let's say 7,000,000,000 last.

There's only 7 billion people on the planet, and if you're number 7 billion, you are the

worst.

So, "worst"...

We got...

Sorry, we had "bad", we go to "worst", which is the exact opposite of "good" to "best".

Cool?

And you have my little devil is showing you that.

This is the angelic way, you're going up; and the devil goes down.

All right?

So, I compare these two.

Now, let's look at the two other variables I talk are similar, yet opposites once again.

On this side we're going to talk about "many", "more", and "most".

Okay?

The only thing they have in common is they all start with "m".

Right?

So, if you have a lot of something, you say: "I have many friends", "I have many good books",

"I've been to many places".

Right?

And we mean "a lot"; it's more than one, two, or three.

But when we say "more", if anything is...

Remember we talked about there's an "er"?

It's almost here that we have the "er" reversed.

It's there, but it's reversed.

So, we have the "er" for the comparative, and it means there's an addition or an increase

from what our "many" is, so there's "more".

So, we have many, we know this, but I even have more than that.

"Many more experiences", so there's an addition or an increase on our "many".

So that shows the difference in a comparison between what we have and what a difference

is in a scale that's actually going up.

All right?

You might see, when you look here and here, there is something that they have in common,

in which there's something better or increase, or we think a greater amount going on.

When we talk about the "most", once again, we have that number one because it's the greatest

amount; there is not more than that.

"I have the most of this" - it means if there is...

Let's give an example.

100th objects, if I have 90, it doesn't mean I have to have 100%, but I have most of it;

there's only 10% left over for somebody else or something else.

Yeah?

Okay?

So, when we talk about the "most", don't confuse it with being 100%.

Even when we say the "best", the best is number one.

When we say here, the "most", it's not exactly equivalent.

It means the most...

You can have the most at 60%; that's more than 40%.

Cool?

All right.

So, let's do the opposite of that, because now we have an understanding of what "many"

is, "more" than that is, and the "most" - what would be the complete opposite?

Well, let's go literally to the complete opposite.

If "most" is number one like you have the most, "least" could be just one.

It means the smallest amount you can have of something.

"I have the least amount of money."

So, if we have three friends, and one friend has $10, another friend has $5, and I have

$1, I have the least amount.

It doesn't mean one, because I could even say I could have $2, which is not 1, but it's

still the lowest of everything else.

I'm very limited in what I have.

Now, I started at the bottom; it might have been better if I started at the top, because

when we say "less", we say: "little", "less", and "least".

Well, "less" is actually what we call a reduced amount.

When we talked about "more", we talked about increasing; when we talk about "less", we

talk about reducing.

"I have less than you."

So, in this case, and this is really bizarre because there's no "er", there's nothing to

say what the comparative is.

Like I said here, you can look here and say: "Okay, at least it's there; it's hidden, it's

changed, it's disguised."

But here it's nothing; it's just "less".

But we have to understand...

Well, if I went here and said: "Well, there's a commonality here - everything starts with

'l'".

"Less" means there's 5.

And what's less than 5?

I would say 3.

And we're saying, by comparison, this is not the same as this.

There's a reduction or there's a reduced amount.

Now, we're going to go to "little" because I told you I'm going backwards from "most"

to "least".

And when we go in the middle: "not much".

Not much.

I was using the example of money, so I'll say that again.

I'll use it again.

If you had $3, would you call that a lot of money?

Probably not.

You'd probably say it's a "little" money.

And you can see here, I don't have much here.

I have, like, you know, maybe 20 little...

Sorry.

10 little things here.

Compare it up to here, like there's 20, that's a little by comparison.

Now, continuing here, reduced, I've gone from maybe 10-15 down to 5, and at the "least"

I only have 1.

Cool?

Great.

So, I'm going to take this lesson a little bit further and show you the last one of the

five.

Because we've done one, two, three, and four.

Quickly, we know what the difference between "good", "better", "best"; "bad", "worse",

"worst" - I love all this alliteration; words that kind of rhyme...

Not rhyme, but go together because of the beginning words.

"Most", "more", "many"; "little", "less", "least"; and finally, to take it to the furthest

realm I can go, let's talk about distance.

"Far", "farther", and "farthest".

This is distance; length, you might say.

How far?

This word, here, means: How long is something from one point to another?

"How far do you live from Canada?", "How far is it to your house?"

How far it is away from there.

So, we're talking about a distance that's being covered.