What does "much superior" mean and why is it correct?

When you buy a music file on iTunes, you have very limited rights what to do with the music, and it's also not platform neutral MP3. For example, I bought a song for my girlfriend but she wasn't able to play the file on her computer next room! That's the problem of Digital Rights Management... and an even bigger problem may be lock-in (you're totally dependent on the single service, even in a decade, and you must hope the service is still available in a decade) and device-dependence (you can't install iTunes on any device able to play MP3s).

No, I meant the wording. I know about the DRM.

Whay not just download completely free and "unrestricted" music, so called "netaudio"?

-> http://www.phlow.de/netlabels/index.php/Main_Page

Much superior as long as the audio quality is no worse.

"very superior" would be a better way to word that.

I though superior doesn't have degrees of comparison.

Being no native speaker of English, I often do this Google search to see if the grammar is OK:
[site:cnn.com "much superior"]
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Acnn.com+%22much+superior%22&btnG=Google+Search

And why can't something be slightly/ very/ little/ much superior to something else? ("Super" just means "above" right?)

"their service would be much superior to what iTunes is doing."

Maybe be worded as "their quality of services would be more superior to what iTunes is offering."

"Much superior" is fine – good, even – but "more superior" is wrong ("superior" is a comparative anyway, so includes the idea of "more"). Probably the most common phrase is "far superior".

But on the other issue, what are your guesses as to what Google is going to do or try to do with music?

Wow, this would be awesome. If Yahoo were to do this, I would pay the extra 10 cents just to get the music stripped of it's DRM (although it is stupid that I have to pay for this "feature", it should be standard, but that's for another day ;)

"("Super" just means "above" right?)"

"Superior" means _way_ above.

Or if you want to tone it down: "much better than".

"And why can't something be slightly/ very/ little/ much superior to something else?"

It's basically a word choice issue. Some word combinations (like "very superior to") are grammatical and parse, but are not in common usage and sound strange to native speakers.

I've realized recently that googlefighting is a good way to distinguish common from uncommon phrases.

much-superior vs. far-superior:

http://googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=much-superior&word2=far-superior

With a little tweaking this could be a useful tool for the "long tail" part of language acquisition – figuring out which preposition goes with which verb, or which verb with which noun ("Ich möchte einen Film [ansehen|anschauen|sehen|zuschauen|...]").

One way to clean up a poorly translated sentence: 1) Generate synonyms for words in the sentence. 2) Googlefight the resulting phrase combinations. 3) Rank the sentences by some composite hit score.

I don't agree Googlefighting is helpful here. I think there's an important difference between using a *correct* phrase, and using *the most common* phrase. I don't always want to go for the most common phrase, but I want to use correct English. So, if a couple of native speakers tell me "much superior" is wrong then I'll stop using it, but judging from this thread it's not. Also see the CNN search I pointed to:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Acnn.com+%22much+superior%22&btnG=Google+Search

I don't mind being convinced of the opposite, as non-native speaker my English is far from perfect.

> "Superior" means _way_ above.

I disagree... dictionary.com defines "superior" as "Higher than another in rank, station, or authority". Not "way higher", which would make the phrasing "slighly superior" become a paradox. (E.g. search for ["slightly superior" site:cnn.com].)

CNN is not a good reference: search for ["more superior" site:cnn.com].

But those results are out of context – they're mostly saying something like "even more superior" or "much more superior". Exclude those, as well as transcripts and search results on CNN, and you'll get only 1 result:

["more superior" site:cnn.com -"even more" -"much more" -"far more" -transcripts -"search results"]

I should probably add that it's not just about checking the result count... if you want to do a simple grammar check using this kind of search, you must always look at the context/ actual usage. Not that I'm saying CNN is always right, it's just one of those simple checks that works fairly well.

"Even more superior" is as bad as "more superior". In my high school, you got a really bad grade for a such a obvious error.

<< In my high school, you got a really bad grade for a such a obvious error. >>

It's probably worth pointing out that grades in high school often depend on the teacher's personal preference in writing style rather than what's right or wrong... ;-)

Believe it or not, teachers are not always right!

Instead of straight googlefighting, perhaps a Google Book Search is the best way of determining good usage. The three alternatives come out in this order of popularity.

1) "far superior": http://books.google.com/books?q=%22far+superior%22&btnG=Search+Books&as_brr=0

2) "much superior":
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22much+superior%22&btnG=Search+Books&as_brr=0

3) "very superior":
http://books.google.com/books?q=%22very+superior%22&lr=&sa=N&start=10

Essentially, either of the first two are fine. "Very superior" is used mostly these days as a technical term – in IQ ranges, in grading brandy etc.

Anyway, Philipp's English is far superior to that of most native speakers.

PLEONASM [16c: from Latin pleonasmus, Greek Pleonasmós ('more-ness') excess, redundancy].
   A traditional term for the use of more words than necessary, either for effect, or more usually as a fault of style, and any instance of that use, as in: Could you repeat that again? rather than Could you say that again? or Could you repeat that?; They both got one each rather than They both got one or They got one each; That's a more superior product (superior already denotes 'more'); It's a really new innovation (an innovation is already new).
   Some common pleonasms attract little comment, such as free gift (gifts are by definition free) and plans for the future (plans cannot be about the present or past).
   Many famous writers have been pleonastic, including Shakespeare's double superlative 'The most unkindest cut of all' (Julius Caesar).
   © 1992 The Oxford Companion to the English Language.

> That's a more superior product

In that sentence, yeah Ionut, it's a pleonasm. But don't think it always is, e.g. "much better", "much higher", "much superior" are normal usages. Also see a search on BBC like ["much superior" site:bbc.co.uk] or ["much better" site:bbc.co.uk]. Or think of the sentence "A house is higher than a bicycle. A skyscraper is *much* higher than a bicycle."

PS: Will this become the longest thread ever? :D

Hopefully not :P

Found of slashdot, Yahoo's releasing some tracks (right now it's only a Jessica Simpson track) at $1.99 stripped of DRM

Links:
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/06/07/20/2051246.shtml
http://ymusicblog.com/blog/2006/07/19/buy-a-customized-jessica-simpson-mp3-at-yahoo-music/

The thread continues here:
http://blogoscoped.com/forum/46236.html