The “grammar” taught in US schools over the years has by far
done more damage than good. It was written by prescriptive
grammarians (as opposed to descriptive linguists) who prescribed
rules based on logic rather than an understanding of the actual
rules of the language. I came across a wonderful example of
their influence while trying to find a few examples of absolute
adjectives Saturday. They also are perfect examples of the
dangers of the Internet that lurk within its wonders. Within the
first 20 returns of my googling “absolute adjective”, I found
three mutually incompatible definitions. 1. At the Summer
Institute of Linguistics, we are told that an absolute adjective
is an adjective which functions as a noun, e.g. the rich, the
poor, an empty. This is an ancient prescriptivist definition; in
fact, any qualitative adjective may be used as a noun in
English. 2. The Wikipedia claims that absolute adjectives stand
alone and do not belong to a larger construction, as happy is an
absolute adjective in “The bo