Parts of California are struggling to recover from the forest fires that devastated thousands of acres a month ago. The fires were “among the worst fires” in the state’s history. Everybody said so.

A year ago the National Weather Service chronicled “one of the worst tornado outbreaks on record.” Then a literate fellow – that is, one who takes things literally – was heard to ask: How can something be “among the worst” or “among the best”? In theory, the superlative form admits no modifiers of degree.

Not to worry. The impossibly idiomatic construction is as old as the English language. It comes in various forms. The Associated Press reported from Tallahassee last year that Gov. Jeb Bush issued a stay of execution for “one of the nation’s only female serial killers.” How can something be “one of the only”? The Washington Post observed that Microsoft “was and remains the single most dominant technology firm in the world.” Single most dominant?

Newspapers and magazines are perennially devoted to the “10 best” restaurants or movies or quarterbacks. A dispute simmers: Should we write about the “10 best” or the “best 10”? (The best 10 would make better grammatical sense.)

The English language is more fun than two kittens and a ball of yarn. Consider the “rule” on comparatives. The rule is to use the suffixes “er” and “est” with adjectives of one or two syllables, and attach “more” and “most” to longer words. The rule works with such monosyllabic roots as “bare,” “cold” and “dull”; it works with easiest, fishiest and grubbiest. But the rule often collapses. Historian Garry Wills wrote that the age of the computer has given us “rapider access” to one another. Rapider access? There are only two syllables in “flagrant,” “fragrant” and “arrant,” but we would not say that one rose is fragranter than another.

One of the charms of English is its utter disorder. In “mad” we have a nice, clean one-syllable adjective. Its comparative forms, according to Webster’s, are mad, madder, maddest. The sequence follows the supposed rule, but it looks odd. Was Lewis Carroll’s famous haberdasher a madder hatter? An editorial writer in the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post a few years ago thought it would be madness for Florida to start its own high-speed rail line, but it would be even “more mad” to write a railroad into the state constitution. “More mad” somehow looks even badder than “madder.”

Question: When is “compared to” better than “compared with”? Beats me. Such authorities as John Bremner say that “compare to” suggests a likeness. Thus we compare Barry Bonds to Mickey Mantle. To suggest both similarity and specific difference, Bremner liked “compare with,” e.g., literary critics have compared Frost’s style with Sandburg’s.

The venerable Henry Fowler wrote to the same effect in 1926. If an orator says, “He compared me to Demosthenes,” we’re saying one thing. Clearly, “He compared me with Demosthenes” says something else. The former is flattery; the latter, analysis.

Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage offers 39 examples of “compared to” and “compared with,” but if the examples provide a pattern of consistent usage, the pattern escapes me. Test your ear on these sentences: “She was often asked to compare the old theater with the new.” “Only Susana could be compared to her ancestors in vital fiber.” “His views are conservative, compared with Dr. Dean’s.” “The deeds of modern heroes are constantly compared to those of Greek and Roman legend.”

I cannot find a clear and consistent guide to what usage is righter or wronger than another. My best advice to writers is old advice: Train your ears and listen to what they tell you. If “sexier” sounds sexier to you than “more sexy,” stick with it. It’s your novel.

James Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.

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