I was recently trying to express a sentiment like the following.
New York is bluer than South Carolina is red.
(For those not familiar with U.S. political jargon, blue = Democratic and red = Republican.)
Although the above phrase is grammatical, it struck me as at least slightly awkward. I can think of numerous variations of this kind of sentence:
Joe is more courageous than Harry is foolish.
Janet caught more fish than I did crabs.
While these phrases can easily be reworked into a longer or different form, e.g. "Janet's fish outnumbered my crabs", I would like to know if there is a more fluent way of expressing this kind of comparison that preserves (more or less) the same structure.
Answer
Context can help.
New York is blue, South Carolina is red. But New York is bluer than South Carolina is red.
Since the blue-red info is no longer new which state is which color is less distracting in the second sentence.
An intensifier can help.
New York is more deeply blue than South Carolina is red.
Since the point of the sentence is comparative intensity it helps to have something expressing intensity.
To step outside the blue/red example:
Janet caught a lot/a few/slightly more fish than I did crabs.
I would be hard pressed to claim these are "more fluent" but they make your point a little easier to identify.
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