Just some more observations.

There is a certain phonetic similarity about the two-syllable words that
attract the -est suffix:  they seem to end in an unstressed vowel or
sonnant, *e.g.,* *able, clever, common, feeble, gentle, narrow, shallow,
simple.*  Some single-syllables that end in *-ng* make the *g* hard, *e.g.,
long (longest), strong (strongest).*  The fact that the adjective forming *
-ing* does not seem to do this suggests a separate allophone or
morphophonemic rule.  Also the -*y* adjectives that attract -*est *can often
have another syllable added to the front, as, *unhappiest, untidiest*.  This
does not seem to be the same for *loving* or *winning*: *"the unlovingest
disciple", ?"the unwinningest team this season."

Bruce

On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 12:37 PM, Dick Veit <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Scott,
>
> If *winningest *is not standard, I'm sure it soon will be. For fun I
> Googled a few other *-ingest* words and found examples of all of them. For
> example, *lovingest* has been used by some literary lights:
>
> " The acutest German, the *lovingest* disciple, could never tell what
> Platonism was; indeed, admirable texts can be quoted on both sides of every
> great question from him." —  Ralph Waldo Emerson
>
> "He told her she had been all her life the *lovingest*, truest, and most
> obedient daughter Heaven ever sent to a poor old widowed man." — Charles
> Reade, The Cloister and the Hearth
>
>  I even tried *fightingest* and found informal instances on blogs:
>
>  "I commanded the Flying Hellfish, the fightingest squad in the
> fightingest company in the third-fightingest battalion in the army." —Tom
> Davenport
>
> Ditto for *singingest*, *laughingest*, and *cryingest*. I remember reading
> in the paper a few years ago that one small town painted characters on all
> its fireplugs and proudly called itself "the plug-paintingest town in
> America."
>
> Dick Veit
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 26, 2010 at 12:36 PM, Scott Lavitt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>>   Recently a high school boy used the word "winningest," as in "the
>> winningest team," which just sounds wrong to me. It's listed as an informal
>> word in Webster's. I was trying to think of a rule why this may not be SAE.
>> First I thought perhaps the double suffix, -ing and -est, but I can think of
>> examples where double suffixes are acceptable. I'm wondering if anyone can
>> shed some light on the matter.
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Scott
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