s nor the superlative is, for that reason, "_a
Comparative_." Why we stop at three degrees, I have already shown: we have
three _forms_, and only three.

OBS. 5.--"The termination _ish_ may be accounted in some sort a degree of
comparison, by which the signification is diminished below the positive, as
_black, blackish_, or tending to blackness; _salt, saltish_, or having a
little taste of salt:[179] they therefore admit of no comparison. This
termination is seldom added but to words expressing sensible qualities, nor
often to words of above one syllable, and is scarcely used in the solemn or
sublime style."--_Dr. Johnson's Gram._ "The _first_ [degree] denotes a
slight degree of the quality, and is expressed by the termination _ish_;
as, _reddish, brownish, yellowish_. This may be denominated the _imperfect_
degree of the attribute."--_Dr. Webster's Improved Gram._, p. 47. I doubt
the correctness of the view taken above by Johnson, and dissent entirely
from Webster, about his "_first degree_ of comparison." Of adjectives in
_ish_ we have perhaps a hundred; but nine out of ten of them are derived
clearly from _nouns_, as, _boyish, girlish_; and who can prove that
_blackish, saltish, reddish, brownish_, and _yellowish_, are not also from
the _nouns, black, salt, red, brown_, and _yellow_? or that "a _more
reddish_ tinge,"--"a _more saltish_ taste," are not correct phrases? There
is, I am persuaded, no good reason for noticing this termination as
constituting a degree of comparison. All "double comparisons" are said to
be ungrammatical; but, if _ish_ forms a degree, it is such a degree as may
be compared again: as,

"And seem _more learnedish_ than those
That at a greater charge compose."--_Butler_.

OBS. 6.--Among the degrees of comparison, some have enumerated that of
_equality_; as when we say, "It is _as sweet as_ honey." Here is indeed a
comparison, but it is altogether in the _positive_ degree, and needs no
other name. This again refutes Harris; who says, that in the positive there
is no comparison at all. But further: it is plain, that in this degree
there may be comparisons of _inequality_ also; as, "Molasses is _not so
sweet_ as honey."--"Civility is _not so slight_ a matter as it is commonly
thought."--_Art of Thinking_, p. 92. Nay, such comparisons may equal any
superlative. Thus it is said, I think, in the Life of Robert Hall:
"Probably no human being ever before suffered _so much_ bodily pain." What
a