ANSWERS: 3
  • The general rule of thumb is that one syllable words have "-er" or "-est" endings, three or more syllable words are preceded by "more" and "most" and two syllable words can be either. Hence, the comparative and superlative forms of "stupid" can either be "stupider" and "stupidest" or "more stupid" and "most stupid". The American Heritage Dictionary supports "stupidest" and "stupider". http://www.answers.com/stupidest
  • Stupider and stupidest do not really exist and comes about in some dictionaries because of the common misuse of the English language. The correct forms as used by our forefathers are: stupid ______more stupid_________most stupid I am not just saying this there are rules in our language. Referenced from (yes I did my research) http://www.eflnet.com/tutorials/adjcompsup.php stu-pid comes under a two-syllable adjective. You form the comparative with more and the superlative with most. Too much jargon and mumbo jumbo, well the below sentence will sort everything out: Who's more stupid the donkey or the one that follows the donkey. Now... Think... didn't that sound natural, you probably cannot pick out the superlative. For those who didn't, just think of somebody saying, Who's "stupider" the donkey or the one that follows the donkey. Now that sounds stupid and is wrong.
  • I think Kim Siever's answer is good, but needs one caveat and shouldn't be misunderstood as "the two-syllable rule means that you can use EITHER." You can't. There are rules about this. The correct comparative is "stupider" and that is that. The other answers on this page are just ridiculous. Stupider is not slang. Whatever our "forefathers" said is irrelevant. (And he's wrong, to boot!) The detailed answer to this is tricky: "stupider" is right and it sounds wrong. Even better, there is a reason it is right and a reason it sounds wrong. The only ironclad rule of thumb about comparatives is the three-syllable rule. For one or two, the rules are elaborate and often inflexible, but they do have their reasons. In English, we often use present and past participles of verbs AS adjectives (e.g., "interesting" and "interested"). These participles-as-adjectives can NEVER take the -er or -est suffixes, NO MATTER HOW MANY SYLLABLES. You can't get boreder and boreder. Wired into our heads is this idea that the "ed" sound, unstressed as the final syllable, means it can't take -er. That's fine, but "stupid" is not such a word at all, it just sounds like one. So stupider is correct, but so many people cringe at it that many dictionaries allow or suggest more stupid. Use whichever you like, but if someone insists you're WRONG for saying "stupider", he's, well, dumb. By the way, "vivider" and "vividest" are correct, too. Same reason. Strange, eh?

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