Why was the word fish pronounced as fisc in Old English?

The modern English word for fish comes from the Old English word fisc (plural: fiscas) which was pronounced as it is today.

The combination sc is usually pronounced [ʃ], like Modern English sh: scip ‘ship’, æsc ‘ash (wood)’, wȳscan ‘wish’. But within a word, if sc occurs before a back vowel (a, o, u), or if it occurs after a back vowel at the end of a word, it is pronounced [sk]: ascian ‘ask’ (where sc was formerly followed by a back vowel), tūsc ‘tusk’. When sc was pronounced [sk] it sometimes underwent metathesis (the sounds got reversed to [ks]) and was written x: axian for ascian, tux for tusc. Sometimes sc is pronounced [ʃ] in one form of a word and [sk] or [ks] in another: fisc ‘fish’, fiscas/fixas ‘fishes’.

sc - you’ll have seen from the word ‘Englisc’ that the combination sc is pronounced like modern English sh. So englisc, scip, fisc, and scearp are ‘English’, 'ship', 'fish', and 'sharp'.

More examples: sciell, sceadu, sceaf, sceap, sceaft, disc, scir, scort, screawa, sciellfisc, wæschus, sæsciell (hints: found on the seashore, cast in sunshine, wheat bunch, baa, spears have them, eat out of it, where hobbits live, not tall, tiny rodent, scampi, place for a shower, found on the seashore)

Why do we say about the formation of degrees of comparison in the following adjective long-longer-the longest?

Most descriptive adjectives can show degree of quality or quantity by forming two degrees of comparison: the comparative degree and the superlative degree. These degrees are formed from the positive degree, which is the usual form of adjectives. The comparative and superlative forms can be simple (bigger, biggest) or compound (more attentive, most attentive).

The comparative degree and the superlative degree are formed by adding the suffixes ER and EST to the positive form of the adjective or by using MORE and MOST before the positive form of the adjective. The choice of ER, EST or MORE, MOST depends mostly on the number of syllables in the adjective.

Positive degree: bright; important.

Comparative degree: brighter; more important.

Superlative degree: brightest; most important.

The category of the degrees of comparison of adjectives is the system of opposemes (long – longer – longest) showing qualitative distinctions of qualities. More exactly it shows whether the adjective denotes the property of some substance absolutely, or relatively as a higher or the highest amount of the property in comparison with that of some other substances.

-> ‘positive’, ‘comparative’ and ‘superlative’ degrees.

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