COMO 



1519 



COMPARISON 



opinions, going to convince those who do not 

 realize the vigor of America that the vigor of 

 America pulses in the blood of every true Amer- 

 ican, and that the only place he can find the 

 true American is in this clearing house of abso- 

 lutely democratic opinion. 



Questions concerning the public health, the 

 upkeep of streets and parks, traffic conditions 

 and a dozen other topics of local interest will 

 be included in the discussions, and there will 

 also be consideration of larger matters state, 

 national and international problems. The 

 young people and the children of the neigh- 

 borhood will find in the adult association a 

 pattern for their own societies, and thus there 

 will be organized the various athletic, dramatic, 

 social, literary and educational clubs. An or- 

 ganization of the older youth of the com- 

 munity for the study and discussion of civic 

 questions will be found an admirable means 

 of training for citizenship. Finally, on certain 

 evenings the various groups children, young 

 people and their elders will meet together for 

 a harmonious community gathering, a gather- 

 ing of the great neighborhood family and that 

 community will be happiest which makes the 

 occasion attractive for those in every walk of 

 life. Certainly there is no better way to cele- 

 brate the special days Hallowe'en, Thanks- 

 giving, Christmas and the rest than this. On 

 such occasions there can be but one sentiment, 

 expressed in such words as these : 



Come close and let us wake the joy 



Our fathers used to know, 

 When to the little old schoolhouse 



Together they would go. 

 And neighbor's heaH to neighbor warmed 



In thought for common good. 

 We'll strike that fine old chord again 



A song of Neighborhood. B.M.W. , 



COMO, ko'mo, LAKE, one of the celebrated 

 beauty spots of Northern Italy, is visited an- 

 nually by many thousands of tourists and has a 

 large permanent summer population of Euro- 

 peans. About sixteen miles long and two and 

 a half miles wide, it lies at the foot of the 

 Alps, which rise 7,000 feet high behind the 

 handsome villas, gardens and vineyards lining 

 the shores. . The River Adda both feeds and 

 drains the lake, as it runs through it, and the 

 chief towns on its shores are Como, Bellano, 

 Cernobbio, Bellaggio and Menaggio. 



COMPARISON (!N GRAMMAR). A French 

 or a German adjective must be plural in form 

 if the noun it modifies is plural, and must 

 take the feminine ending to agree with a noun 

 in the feminine gender. An English adjective, 

 on the other hand, is inflected for one purpose 



only to express a greater or a smaller quan- 

 tity or degree of the quality it denotes. Such 

 variation, which applies also to adverbs, is 

 called comparison. The above statement does 

 not include the pronominal adjectives, such as 

 this and that, which 'are inflected for number. 



The Three Degrees. Positive. When we 

 say, "This book is heavy," or "This book is 

 interesting," the adjectives heavy and interest- 

 ing are said to be in the positive degree. The 

 corresponding adverbs, heavily and interest- 

 ingly, are also positive in degree. 



Comparative. With two books before us, 

 we may say, "This book is heavier than the 

 other," or "more interesting than the other," 

 and in the descending scale, "less heavy" or 

 "less interesting, than the other." Heavier, 

 less heavy, more interesting and less interest- 

 ing, with the related adverbial forms more 

 heavily, less interestingly and the like, are said 

 to be in the comparative degree. 



Superlative. Among three or more books, 

 we may point out the one which has the high- 

 est or lowest degree of weight or interest, 

 saying, "This is the heaviest (or least heavy) 

 book"; "This is the most interesting (or least 

 interesting) book." Heaviest, least heavy, most 

 interesting, least interesting, and their corre- 

 sponding adverbial forms least heavily, most 

 interestingly and the like, are said to be in the 

 superlative degree. 



Where the suffixes er and est are added to 

 the positive form it is called comparison by 

 endings, and where the adverbs more, most, 

 less or least are prefixed it is called comparison 

 by adverbs. See ADJECTIVE; ADVERB. 



Irregularly-Compared Adjectives. Some of 

 the commonest adjectives are irregularly com- 

 pared words that have come down from Old 

 English forms. The following list includes a 

 few which, though not now in familiar use, are 

 frequently met with in writing that employs 

 the quaint English of an earlier day. As indi- 

 cated, some have no positive form as adjec- 

 tives. 



