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ESL forum > Grammar and Linguistics > "Mature"    

"Mature"



ayda louhichi
Tunisia

"Mature"
 
Which one is correct? maturer/maturest?
                                            or
                      more mature than/ most mature?
As far as I know, it �s the first, but i �ve found both on the net

22 Nov 2010      





PaulG
Costa Rica

Hi. Usually, when an adjective has two or more syllables, the correct form is more/most .... The exception to this rule is when the adjective ends with a "y". So, the correct answer is more/most mature.

22 Nov 2010     



ayda louhichi
Tunisia

Thanks Paul so much

22 Nov 2010     



Minka
Slovenia

Add -er, -ow and -le to the exceptions:

narrow - narrower - the narrowest
clever - cleverer - the cleverest
simple - simpler - the simplest.

22 Nov 2010     



almaz
United Kingdom

Even with other two-syllable words not ending in -y, -ow, -le etc, it is, of course, possible to have the -er/-est endings and, if my Oxford Encyclopedic English Dictionary is anything to go by, maturer and maturest are perfectly acceptable. Actually, even Wiktionary accepts this: 

[I know that I�ve gone on about this before (it�s nothing personal, Paul, I assure you Smile), but we really should be more careful when we say that this or that is �correct� or �not correct� - particularly if we haven�t bothered to check authoritative sources (and I am not talking about the likes of Lynne Truss or Simon Heffer here; I mean dictionaries of usage, corpus studies, grammars written by grammarians etc). I�m a native English speaker, experienced teacher and linguist and I always double-check sources as far as I am able before I make pronouncements on the English language. And I�m still open to argument...]

22 Nov 2010