Regular and Irregular Comparatives and Superlatives

     English adjectives are known to grammarians as belonging to one of three classes: positive, comparative, and superlative.  This is what they look like when the postive adjective is regularly inflected by adding a predictable suffix or by adding "more" and "most":

REGULAR COMPARATIVES/SUPERLATIVES

tall        taller       tallest        Philo is more tall than than the second bassoonist / most tall of all the bassoonists vs. *Philo is more tall / most tall

ugly      uglier        ugliest

rich    richer    richest

IRREGULAR COMPARATIVES/SUPERLATIVES

good    better    best

bad    worse    worst

little    less    least

much/many/some    more    most

far    farther    farthest       Most authorities say NOT     far    *further    *furthest  [reserving "further" and "furthest" for metaphorical comparisons]