I came across the following in 'Bun-Ghaeilge'.

"Sometimes you have occasion to say something like "the cleverer man," "the bigger boys." In that case you say an fear is cliste, na gasúir is mó. In such sentences níos is dropped out and 'is' means "who is/are," "which is/are.""

I would have thought before that something like 'an fear is cliste' meant 'the cleverEST man'. Can it have both meanings and, if not, how would one say 'the cleverest man'?


(P.S. How do you write in italics, blue etc? I'm bloody hopeless at this computer crap.)

James, most html tags work, but also see:

http://www.daltai.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/daltai/discus/discus.pl?pg=formatting

Caoimhín

Go raibh míle maith agat, ^{a Chaoimhín}.

Braitheann sé ar an gcomhthéacs. Má tá dream i gceist agus luaite, is ionann the cleverest agus the cleverer.

Sampla:

Tá X níos cliste ná Y
Idir X agus Y, 'sé X is cliste.

Tá an seomra seo níos dorcha

Tá an seomra is dorcha anseo.

Or

"Is cliste X ná Y" = "Tá X níos cliste ná Y".

D’úrt mo mhúinteoir linn go rabh ’n chéad abairt níos cirte ná ’n darna cionn (siocair go rabh struchtúr an darna cionn cosúil le "tá sé fear" ó thaobh na sanasaíochta dó: níos < ní + is, mar sin Tá X ní is cliste ná Y" = "X is a thing more clever than Y"). Ach thig leat an dá chionn a ráidht ar aon nós.

Ins an chomhthéacs sin tá comparative agat, gan "níos". Ach ní mheascann tú leis an superlative, siocair go bhfaighfeá "Is é X is cliste" leis an superlative.

Sin é.

Is fearr liomsa "Is cliste X ná Y" ach theastaigh uaim feidhm a bhaint as "níos".

If you saw the sentence 'Na garsúin is mó' on it's own (say as the title of a story) what would it mean to you. 'The biggest boys' or 'The bigger boys'?

If it can mean both is there any way to make the meaning clearer?

Sorry if this is getting a bit tedious.

The question only makes sense if there is a context.

There is no real difference between "the bigger boys" and "The biggest boys".

And "Na garsúin níos mó" would be just plain wrong, because "níos" requires two operands (sorry, I'm a computer programmer, and I can't think of a simpler way of putting it)

What may seem ambiguous to a native speaker of one language is perfectly normal to a native speaker of another language.

For instance, in English, we distinguish between a "broken tool" and a "breaking tool" (let's pretend the latter is a tool such as a hammer for breaking stuff). In Irish though, they're both the same for the vast majority of verbs: uirlis bhriste. Another example would be "an examined book" and an "examination book": leabhar scrúdaithe.

When I first realised this in Irish, I couldn't believe that there was such ambiguity (coming from a background of English). Eventually over time though, I just had to acquiesce to it and get on with things. Then, as time went by, I realised that there wasn't any ambiguity, that it didn't cause any trouble.

In English, we sometimes say stuff like "It takes the bigger man to walk away", while we might think it would be more appropriate to say "The biggest man walks away". These are nuances, and shouldn't be read into too much.

Believe it or not, you can't translate the name of a book to a very different language unless you know what the title means. Of course there are simple ones such as "An Bád" = "The Boat", but I can think of plenty of places where I can't translate simple phrases because I don't have context.

If an Irish book were entitled, "Na Garsúin is Mó", I would have no choice but to translate it as "The Biggest Boys" if I didn't have context.

Go raibh maith agaibh as bhur bhfreagraí.
"And "Na garsúin níos mó" would be just plain wrong" dheineas botún annsoin. 'Is mó' a bhí i gceist agam a scríobh.

If you saw the sentence 'Na garsúin is mó' on it's own (say as the title of a story) what would it mean to you. 'The biggest boys' or 'The bigger boys'?

Na garsúin is mó = the biggest boys.

The bigger boys = na garsúin atá níos mó, so the boys who are bigger.