Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2010

It depends a little bit on what is to follow your ellipsis. But it's
basically OK. You're saying "If there were a list of the five largest cakes,
this cake would be on it."
Lake Huron is one of the largest lakes in North America. The hippo is one of
the most dangerous animals in Africa. a.e.u. is one of the most interesting
groups on Usenet.

When my brother was 16, I was watching him play with his stamp
collection, and he had a made a list ranking some part of his
collection, and -- these are recollections and probably not exact --
and at the top was one thing rated first, and next there were 4 things
that were tied for second, and he rated the next item as 6th.  And I
noticed the item ranked 6th first, and I was 9 and I had it took me a
few second to figure out how that could be.  It felt like a real
moment of enlightenment when I realized that even though it was in the
third ranking level of whatever, it was still in 6th place.

But this is the first time anyone else has brought this topic up
directly, in the 50+ years since then.  Thank you.

If the cake is tied for largest, you are right.

But I can also see that there are a group of small cakes, medium
cakes, large cakes, larger cakes, and largest cakes, and in each group
not all the cakes are the same size, not even in the largest cake
group, so I can imagine that a cake doesn't have to be the absolute
largest if one could impose on all cakes the kind of grouping I have
here.

Beyond that, I'm not sure.

On Wed, 06 Jan 2010 23:20:41 +0800, harry099 wrote:

George O. Curme, _English Grammar_ @ "104.Comparison of Adjectives, A.
Degrees":

 Often, however, the superlative is used in a relative sense, indicating
 that of the persons or things compared a certain person or thing
 possesses the quality in the highest degree; which need not be a very
 high, or the highest degree.