What's wrong with "more perfect" ? You may have read this before :
Quote:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
As for the OP, just don't use the 'most', it's unnecessary.
What's wrong with "more perfect" ? You may have read this before :
Quote:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union,
Dale?
0 Replies
contrex
1
Reply
Sat 30 Nov, 2013 02:49 am
@Joe Nation,
Ah, the U. S. Constitution, with one of the most famous grammatical "errors" in history. My view is that since nothing earthly can really be perfect, use of that word is understood by all to be a rhetorical exaggeration (consider the context!), and thus the way is prepared for 'more' or 'less' to be legitimately used. There are degrees of this never-to-be-reached 'perfection'. Some things can be more (nearly) perfect than others. A union can be more (nearly) perfect than it was before. See also 'correct'.
It's not an error at all.
We had an union of the various former colonies under the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution of the United States was written and agreed upon to improve or perfect that union, thus 'a more perfect' union.
What did you think about the OP?
Joe(Was that not the most preeminent thing on your mind?)Nation heh
Oh yeah, I saw them, but I was raised differently. My first English teacher/editot told me that these " " were to be used to frame speech and these ' ' could be used to express irony, but she didn't like that very much.
"If you want to express irony", she said, "Write ironically."
"If you want to express irony", she said, "Write ironically."
I never heard of the "double quotes for speech and single quotes for irony" thing before. Many British style guides advise one to enclose quoted matter between single quotation marks, and to use double quotation marks for a quotation within a quotation, but this is 'often reversed in newspapers, and uniformly in the US' as the Oxford University Press rather sniffily advises.
I have to say I am 100% in agreement with your teacher.
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