Fuller Is Not A Word

Dear World,

We need to talk.

Oh, yes, I’ve been guilty of hyperbole, of overweening enthusiasm for stupid things. And yes, I’ve fluffed my bit of purple prose; it’s the lot of a linguist. However. I’ve noticed, World, that lately you’re ever so full of the superlatives. You gush in the media — in scholarly papers, on lip serum ads — about “fuller explanations,” fuller lips, and being prosecuted to the “fullest extent of the law.”

Let me explain this again to you: you cannot get more full than full. The word that can be used as an adjective, noun and a verb is full. There is no such thing as “full, fuller, fullest.” I’m sorry, but that usage is dumb, dumber, and dumbest. Can you be more wrong than wrong? Wrong… wronger, wrongest? No. So, stop being so lame.

A Fuller is …a brush company. A theological university on the West Coast. The last name of some dude named Buckminster. Or, what you do to make pleats in fabric. But it is not a superlative.

World. Stop pouting, now. It’s an easy mistake to make. Just… don’t do it again, okay?

3 Replies to “Fuller Is Not A Word”

  1. fuller1
    n noun a person whose occupation is fulling cloth.

    fuller2
    n noun a grooved or rounded tool on which iron is shaped.
    n verb stamp (iron) using a fuller.

    ORIGIN
    C19: of unknown origin.

  2. fuller1
    n noun a person whose occupation is fulling cloth.

    fuller2
    n noun a grooved or rounded tool on which iron is shaped.
    n verb stamp (iron) using a fuller.

    ORIGIN
    C19: of unknown origin.

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