What's happening to the simple comparative form?

 I have known for a long time that many people in the UK have no idea how to make the comparative form of an adverb. How often have you heard people say that they "eat healthier" these days? Do they say, "I eat healthy"? No, they say, "I eat healthily". So they should be saying "I eat more healthily these days than I used to." It seems to me, though, that most people in the press and on TV or the radio can't manage that. Shame. My students would be marked down for writing and speaking like that in the exam.

Now, to add to the fact that a huge number of native speakers can't manage to form the comparative form of an adverb, they seem to be forgetting that there are two ways to make a comparative form of an adjective.

As you are probably aware, English started off as a Germanic language and then was heavily influenced by Latin and French after the Norman Conquest of 1066 (practically the only date that most British people will know).

Nearly all adjectives longer than one syllable use the French way of making a comparative (and superlative).

interesting - more interesting - the most interesting
difficult - more difficult - the most interesting

All adjectives of one syllable, two-syllable adjectives ending in -y and a handful of other two-syllable adjectives ending in -er, -le and -ow use the German way of forming comparatives and superlatives

hard - harder - the hardest
rare - rarer - the rarest
sunny - sunnier - the sunniest
lucky - luckier - the luckiest
narrow - narrower - the narrowest
simple - simpler - the simplest
clever - cleverer - the cleverest

But what have I been hearing on BBC Radio 4 these last few weeks? "More rare", "more strict", "more dear" and so on and so forth. I mean...WHAT? 

So far, I've not heard 'more hard' and 'more fast' rather than harder and faster, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

In the meantime, my foreign students of English - from Germany, China, Ukraine, Spain, France etc. - they have to speak and write correct English. Oh, the irony.

Move, for heaven's sake!

Over the last few months, I've caught a lot of old episodes of Midsomer Murders on online TV channels. And there is something that really puzzles me: whenever the next murder victim turns round and sees the murderer bearing down on them, they don't move. At all. They just lie, sit or stand there, impassively, open their eyes wide, allow their mouth fall open and let the murderer shoot, stab, push them off a balcony or kill them in some other, more devious way.

And I wonder if people really have no reflexes these days? Don't they have any instincts of self-preservation? Can't they roll out of harm's way? Can't they turn sideways? Take a few steps back? Duck?

Not in Midsomer Murders and a few other TV series, it seems. In a similar vein to what the Victorians advised women who had to put up with their husbands' "urges", they just lie back and take whatever is coming to them. Even when I shout a warning at the screen...

I only wanted one book! On the deadly attraction of bookshops

 There used to be a shop in Düsseldorf called Stern Verlag. It formed part of my imaginary heaven: an outdoor pool in a nice park, the sixth floor of KaDeWe (the large department store in the heart of Berlin, whose sixth floor is devoted to food) and Stern Verlag - the massive bookshop on various levels that you could just get lost in.

Sadly, that bookshop is no more. It overreached itself, expanding into adjacent commercial space and adding a cafe, and it crumbled. The space it used to occupy is still empty. It's a heartbreaking sight. 

I would always have to stay at least 200 metres away from Stern Verlag, because if I got any closer, it would magically draw me to it and I'd be forced to walk through its doors, whereupon I would enter into a trance and wander around there for an hour or two. You could even sit down in places and do some very intensive browsing. It was heaven. 

Naturally, even if I entered determined to buy only one book as a present, I would come out with more than originally planned.

In a similar vein, I toodled off to Mayersche bookshop on Saturday to buy one address book and one French book to read in April. (I've already got a French book to read for March.)

Mayersche is really not my favourite bookshop. For me, it's a massive escalator system in the middle of the shop with a few books huddled around it.

However, I managed to find a very small selection of address books and begrudgingly bought one. 

Then I bought one French book, and another, and finally a third. 

Turning round, I happened to see some interesting popular science titles in English. Oh, my...

In the end, besides the small, green address book, I came away with this haul:

1. La jeune fille et la nuit by Guillaume Musso

2. Completement crame by Gilles Legardinier

3. Deux soeurs by David Foenkinos
and

4. Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is Mostly Wrong by Eric Barker

5. Bulls**t Jobs: the Rise of Pointless Work and what we can do about it by David Graeber

6. Good Economics for Hard Times: Better Answers to Our Biggest Problems by Bannerjee and Duflo (a Nobel-prize-winning husband and wife team who wrote the fantastic book Poor Economics, a veritable eye-opener and must-read)

7. Natural Born Leaders: Our Incredible Capacity to Learn and How We Can Harness It by Alex Beard.

I've got a lot of reading to do, then. Not sure when I will cram it all in. At least I won't need to go near a bookshop in the near future.