LEND ME YOUR EAR: CAN ANYTHING BE SQUARER THAN SQUARE?

Uses of the pronoun are virtually endless, and the same may be said of adjectives. Today we highlight adjectives used as pronouns. Knowledgeable teachers and textbooks still call them "pronominal adjectives" or "predicate nominatives."

In a recent column, we grazed the surface of personal pronouns used as adjectives, stressing usage according to cases: "I" and "we" are in the nominative case because they serve as subjects. "Our" and "your" show possession and are thus declined in the possessive case. What could be more logical?

Objects of verbs and prepositions, to no one's surprise, are in the objective case. It follows that "us" and "them" do not qualify as subjects. Never mind that we are likely to hear "Us guys is fighting over marbles, 'cause them marbles is mine." For months, I enjoyed "them cheeses" in a nursing home. Them cheeses remain my best memory of that unforgettable stay.

Through the years, our readers have survived possessives with gerunds, and the uses of the relative pronouns "who", "which", and "that." "This", "that", "these", and "those" are classified as demonstrative pronouns. "That", obviously, may be demonstrative as well as relative, as shown in "Why object to that?" and "I paid for that book."

So much for this and that. The articles "a", "an", and "the" are also pronominal adjectives. The general rule is that "a" and "an" are indefinite, whereas "the" is definite. In "I saw a little girl at your door with an apple in her hand," the sense conveyed by "a" and "an" is indefinite. If there are apples on the table inside, "the" apples and "the" table are definite.

Now for the predicate nominative. Usually, the subject and predicate nominative can be exchanged for each other, but predicate adjectives can raise doubts. Suppose the apple the little girl had in her hand was small. Unless we are thinking of poetry, "Small was the apple" could cause readers to wonder.

So forget the apple, and consider: "Your son is the best runner in the school." Would we offend you if we changed it to "The best runner in the school is your son"? I wouldn't object to either. Both "son" and "runner" are predicate nominatives, but neither is an adjective.

Off and on, we hear airborne speakers use "better" for "best", as in "He is the better basketball player in the country." "Better" denotes only two. "Best" means three or more.

As most of us know, there are three degrees of comparison in the use of adjectives: positive, comparative, and superlative. Oddly, there is no comparison in the positive degree. If the skirt your grandmother sent you is on the long side, it is simply "long." Say it is longer than you like, "longer" is comparative. Say this is the longest skirt you have worn since you were baptized long before age one: "Longest" renders the skirt superlative, but you see nothing super about it. So wear the new skirt once, show it off to your grandmother, then shorten it and pray granny won't drop by and catch you sporting it as soon as it becomes a mini.

In general, the comparative degree is formed by adding "er"; the superlative by adding "est." Some adjectives, as most of us also learned in grade school, require "more" and "most." Usually, our ear will tell us which sounds better (not best). Unless we are tone-deaf, we won't choose "beautifuller" over "more beautiful," or complain that life gets "more hard" instead of "harder" as we age. Still, a mother could become "more dear" or "dearer" to her offspring as the years go by. No one will be offended by either, least of all the mother.

Some adjectives have irregular comparisons, as noted in "good, better, best." "Bad, worse, worst", and "far, farther, farthest" should also be familiar to us, though I know of one prominent networker who thinks the superlative is "fartherest." Do not listen to him!

We have a handful of adjectives that are beyond compare. Among those that cannot be compared are "unique", "dead", and "square." "Unique", as I have pointed out in these columns again and again, is an absolute and cannot be "more unique" or less.

Nor can anyone be "deader" than dead, though I once heard a brash neighborhood brat swear he was "gonna kill that dog dead." I was about the same age as the would-be killer, but even then I wondered how a dog could be anything but dead if someone had killed it.

Can a square box be anything but "square"? People can. I've been called "squarer than square" and even the "squarest ever" when it comes to denouncing obscene or otherwise unacceptable grammar.