If English had any consistency at all, we could talk about the relative merits of three options as being “good,” “gooder,” and “goodest.” Another consistent option might be “bett,” “better,” and“best.” But instead, as you’re well aware, what we have is “good,” “better,” and “best.”
The word “good” has, in fact, the same root as both “gather” and “together.” They come from the Germanic word “gath,” a verb that means “to bring together.” It can also be an adjective, and started out meaning “united.” It later evolved to mean “appropriate” (or “appropriately united”). From there, people realized that if a set of things (or people, or what-have-you) were suitable when combined, that was a pleasing thing — and that’s where our modern meaning of “good” arose.
“Good” is a noun as well as an adjective, of course; it’s used in “goods and services,” and “goods” can be just about any tangible objects, property, or merchandise. Originally the noun “good” also meant what we would today use “goodness” for (“They are reformed, full of good, … And fit for great employment.” – Shakespeare, from “Two Gentlement of Verona”, 1590). That sense of “good” morphed into “goodness” around the mid 1700s.
“Gooder” and “goodest” (which, technically, would be the comparative and superlative forms of “good”) have never existed. This is probably because “better” and “best” have been available in English just as long as has “good” — and all three go back to Old English. But we could easily have ended up with something like the imaginary but consistent sequence “bett,” “better,” and“best.”
“Better” and “best” also come from Germanic roots, and they had three forms. The Germanic “bat” meant “improvement”, and it had comparative (batizon) and superlative (batistaz) forms. These two forms entered English as “betera” and “betest”, which became the less stuttery words we’re familiar with, “better” and “best.” What happened to “bat” itself? Well in fact it did enter English, but was never associated closely enough with “better” or “best” to make them a logical sequence. “Bat” became “boot” — not the footwear though; it was a noun that meant, sensibly enough, “advantage.” It’s still around in the phrase “to boot”, as in “I got a new set of tires, and they threw in a free spare to boot.” “To boot” has a pretty narrow meaning nowadays, and is almost exclusively used to mean something added to a transaction.
So we could very well have ended up with “boot”, “better”, and “best” — but if those had become the default sequence, mightn’t they have become closer in pronunciation too? Something like “boot,” “booter,” and…hey, wait a minute… “boost?” Well no, don’t get too excited, “boost” is not related. Actually there are at least three “boosts” in English, each of which has its own derivation. The oldest “boost” appeared around the 1300s, and meant a box. This “boost” came from the Old English “boiste,” which meant a box used for ointment of some sort. This form of “boost” disappeared several centuries ago. The “boost” that means encouragement, help, or an upward push to someone trying to climb, say, a wall, didn’t appear until the 1800s. It was originally a slang term in the US, and hasn’t changed much at all in meaning since then. “I got a pretty good boost in Boston…by the editors giving me recommendations” is from “Selected Letters of Major Jack Downing,” published in 1834.
Another version of “boost” never really made it out of Scottish dialects, where it means “I must.” It goes back to the late 1700s, when it was used by Robert Burns: “ I fear, that, wi’ the geese, I shortly boost to pasture I’ the craft some day.” It’s been spotted in the wild as recently as 1980 (with a variation in spelling): “We buist hide wir dried, an’ wir luve” (by G. Taylor, from the December, 1980 issue of “Akros” magazine).
So in the end, here we sit, still subject to the vagaries and inconsistencies of English. Which is fine, I suppose, but wouldn’t it at least be a little finer if “boot,” “better,” and “best” had worked out. And finest of all I think would be the simple and obvious “good,” “gooder,” and “goodest.” But it wasn’t meant to be, so we’ll have to look elsewhere for a consistent sequence of favorability that includes comparative and superlative versions. Where would we ever find such a sequence?
