general that it could fit any book on any subject from linguistics to polymer chemistry. Being more definite, however, the subtitle is more open to criticism. For in a broad sense every statement about quality is comparative: if we say that somebody is thin, we imply a comparison with people who are fat or medium. Any kind of measurement also entails a comparison with the yardstick, while every instance of counting (not to speak of search for correlations) involves comparisons between sets. So even a most down-to-earth piece of fact finding-let alone any attempt to ascertain trends-comprises implicit comparisons. Consequently, if the word 'comparative' is to enable us to make a useful
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Marsh et al. (1968) studied this question.