Quote:
Originally Posted by Jel
it is? I got called on that some time ago, looked it up, and sure enough it wasn't a word... they let that one in now? (too lazy to look lol)
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The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4th ed.), for example, gives the forms as “stupid” … “stupider” … “stupidest.”
And this isn’t a peculiar Americanism. H. W. Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage also gives the correct forms as “stupid” … “stupider” … “stupidest.”
Fowler hints, though, at what might account for ... avoiding “est” in favor of “most” to form the superlative:
“Neglect or violation of established usage with comparatives & superlatives sometimes betrays ignorance, but more often reveals the repellent assumption that the writer is superior to conventions binding on the common herd.”
1828: Thomas Carlyle, in a letter, refers to “the simplest and stupidest man of his day.”
1842: Samuel Lover, in Handy Andy: A Tale of Irish Life (1842), writes, “She felt the pique which every pretty woman experiences who fancies her favours disregarded, and thought Andy the stupidest lout she ever came across.”
1871: Charles Gibbon, in the novel For Lack of Gold, writes, “This cursed frenzy makes me say and think the stupidest things.”
Just for the heck of it, I searched online in “The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913,” and found the word used in testimony in a theft case tried in May 1785. A prosecutor is quoted as saying, “I should be the stupidest man living, having property, to leave my house so unsafe.”
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/20...stupidest.html