Is it standard to compare two nouns?
The phrase 'more NOUN than NOUN' appears to be fairly common in both formal and informal contexts. However, most of these cases seem to be comparing the quantity of both nouns rather than the quality of them.
So if your emphasis is on the 'more NOUN than NOUN' construction, I would say the answer is: yes, this is standard, fairly common, and occurs in both formal and informal contexts.
If your emphasis is on the 'quasi-adjectival' nature of the nouns (as you put it), as contrasted to the more common quantitative nature of the nouns in the 'more NOUN than NOUN' construction, than I would say the answer is: yes, this is standard, but maybe not quite that common, and does occur in both formal and informal contexts.
It also struck me looking at examples that this construction seems to have many clichés (like 'more style than substance', 'more bite than bark', 'more questions than answers') but is also still productive (with new ones cropping up like 'more machismo than menace' which may only ever remain extremely rare or unique).
Some invented examples to illustrate the distinction I'm making between the constructions that compare quantity, and the ones that compare quality:
- "His threats had more bark than bite." -> Here I would expand this to mean 'His threats have both bark and bite, but there's more bark in them than bite.' So what's being compared is the amount (i.e. quantity) of bark and bite contained in the threats. This type of construction often has an additional adverb that measures the quantity in some way, e.g. "His threats had much more bark than bite." or "His threats had far more bark than bite."
- "His threats were more bark than bite." -> Here I would expand this to mean 'His threats are more like bark than they are like bite; they're kind of a bit like both, and also not really either of them, but if I had to compare them to something, I'd say they were more similar to bark than to bite'. So here, what's being compared is the quality of barks and bites, both of which are metaphorically being equated to threats.
Some non-invented examples for good measure.
In the British National Corpus (which is 100 million words of British English from the late 20th century, released as a corpus in 2007, see here), there are 617 instances of 'more NOUN than NOUN' (which is a frequency of 5.504 instances per million words) [of these 617 instances, 40 were from the spoken part of the corpus]. I've not carried out a detailed analysis of them, but from a quick glance, it seems most of these are about comparing the quantity of two nouns, rather than the quality of them. The actual number of the construction we're interested in is also a bit smaller than this, because some of the 'more NOUN than NOUN' constructions picked up are not some we're interested in here. Below, I give a few of these instances, just for illustration purposes.
Examples that compare the quantity:
- "Psychology is still a subject in which there are far more questions than answers." [Written, from a periodical]
- "Going to the theatre, concerts and art galleries remains largely the privilege of the well-off and well-educated, and of more women than men, research shows." [Written, from a periodical]
- "The good doctor was very excitable and often acted with more enthusiasm than wisdom." [Written, from a fiction book]
- "Such a scheme may do more good than harm." [Written, from a non-fiction book]
- "But for the rowers taking part there's more pain than pleasure in a contest where only the fittest survive." [Written-to-be-spoken, from a television script]
- "Is this a man of much more style than substance?" [Spoken, from a radio phone-in]
Examples that compare the quality:
- "The T-shirts are more machismo than menace." [Written, from a periodical]
- "This week's striking display of Labour unity was more show than substance." [Written, from a periodical]
- "A home that is much more diy than designer" [Written, from a periodical]
- "In reality, he was more pawn than player." [Written, from a biography book]
- "It seemed more mammal than bird" [Written, from a biography book]
- "The death of the old Daily Herald, the longest surviving Labour daily, founded in 1912 and owned by the Labour party for a period between the wars, was more agony than trauma." [Written, from a non-fiction book]
Examples where it's not entirely clear if it's the quantity or quality being compared:
- "This development allowed the area of window relative to wall to increase to a maximum in the 1900s when the façades of mills became more glass than brick." [Written, from a non-fiction book]
- "It looked more silver than gold on this dull, overcast day." [Written, from a fiction book]
- "What they used to sell a er er at er in the lace market at dinnertime, they used to make a big roly pudding, like that, with jam in it and sauce on it, white sauce, it was more water than sauce, you know" [Spoken, from an oral history interview]
Examples caught by a 'more NOUN than NOUN' search that we wouldn't be interested in here:
- "Lemons are more acid than bananas." -> instance of mis-tagging ('acid' is an adjective here, not a noun.)
- "Some people need a lot more treatment than others." -> instance where 'than' isn't separating the two things being compared ('treatment' and 'others' aren't actually being compared, it's 'some people' and 'others' that are being compared).
I know this response is late in the game, but I wanted to narrow the focus to the noun-comparison pattern that includes a linking verb: [to be] more NOUN than NOUN.
This pattern is indeed common in writing. It’s also linguistically “productive”—that is, it can be applied to produce practically countless instances of its kind with nouns of the writer’s choice (e.g. the street is more pothole than pavement, his book is more recipe than reflection, the river is more sandbar than waterway—see at end for more samples from the corpus).
With its imprecise measure and sometimes rhetorical whimsy, the construction doesn’t lend itself to use in, say, a science paper. But it’s widely accepted in formal writing, especially in journalism, where stylistic brevity and flair is valued.
It seems to me that these nouns following the linking verb usually function normally—as predicate nouns (e.g. like president in I am president)—and not like predicate adjectives (e.g. like presidential in I am presidential). But perhaps your particular example is a little different (we’ll get to that at the end).
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The [to be] more NOUN than NOUN comparison is used to weight two qualities or characteristics within someone or something, like this:
By now, the mud puddle is more mud than puddle, and the game of tag morphs into mud wrestling.
Source: The Washington Post
We can imagine it expanded out using the preposition like (having the characteristics of) in front of the nouns:
By now, the mud puddle is more [like] mud than [like a] puddle . . .
Or we can conceptually understand it sort of like “more parts this and fewer parts that”:
By now, the mud puddle is [two parts] mud + [one part] puddle . . .
Nouns all, I would say. We can turn the nouns into adjectives by appending an adjective-forming suffix such as -like:
By now, the mud puddle is more mud-like than puddle-like . . .
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Depending on the nouns, the imaginary expansion might be better served by the preposition of, which combines with more to mean to a greater extent or degree:
There’s no simple list of actions departing CEOs should take; planning the outgoing transition is more art than science.
Source: Forbes. . . planning the outgoing transition is more [of an] art than [a] science.
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Quite often, these patterns employ rhetorical devices like metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche. (Noun alliteration is also often involved.) In the first example below, horse and zebra are nouns used in their usual sense. In the second, those same nouns are used as metaphors for uncommon and ordinary:
[The zorse] was more horse than zebra but still had some features like some stripe patterns and a mane that stuck up, but it was tall like a horse.
Source: RedditIn contrast, many clinicians view the disorder as uncommon, more zebra than horse.
Source: Endocrine Practice (login required)
Here are some more metaphors:
The Cubs’ interest is more smoke than fire, one person with knowledge of the situation said. They would prefer to land a younger, team-controlled starter.
Source: Detroit Free Press
Smoke and fire are used to signal mild vs. blazing interest. (I would further call temperatures mild and blazing metaphors for moderate and extreme.)
And more:
Reminiscent of the song “Ocean Rain,” the placement of this track at the beginning is a hint that this album is more candlelight than glitterball.
Source: SortMusic
There, we have both metonymy and metaphor. Candlelight and glitterball stand in metonymously for something like quiet evening vs. night at the dance club, which in turn metaphorically signal contemplative vs. kinetic ambience.
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In the metaphors above, the nouns stand in for adjectives (zebra = uncommon, fire = blazing, dance club = kinetic, etc.), but I don’t think that changes their function in the sentence; they’re still syntactically predicate nouns following linking verbs. Similarly: Even though we understand the metaphorical You’re toast to mean You’re finished, we don’t consider toast to function like an adjective there.
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Still, I can imagine a case for an adjective interpretation. Here’s another noun interpretation, as above:
The flavor is more cucumber than melon, with a peppy citrus kick.
Source: The National Gardening AssociationThe flavor is more [like] cucumber than [like] melon . . .
Append an adjective-forming suffix: The flavor is more cucumbery than melony . . .
But if we imagine an elliptical noun flavor, we could argue that cucumber and melon are vestigial attributive nouns (which function as adjectives), stripped of their shared noun:
The flavor is more [like a] cucumber [flavor] than [like a] melon [flavor] . . .
Note that the adjective approach doesn’t work with our mud puddle:
? By now, the mud puddle is more [like a] mud [mud puddle] than [like a] puddle [mud puddle] (questionable)
So what’s going on with your sentence (inspired by the interesting New York Times article (The Business of Burps: Scientists Smell Profit in Cow Emissions)?
Mr. Hafner is German and has a buttoned-up manner that is more boardroom than barn.
Are these functioning as nouns?
? Mr. Hafner has a buttoned-up manner that is more [like a] boardroom than [like a] barn.
? Mr. Hafner is more [like a] boardroom than [like a] barn.
Hm, a manner or a person isn’t at all like a boardroom or a barn, like a room or building. Sure, there are things associated with boardrooms and barns, but there’s a missing link. What I see here is:
Mr. Hafner has a buttoned-up manner that is more boardroom [manner] than barn [manner].
Mr. Hafner has a buttoned-up manner that is more [like a] boardroom [manner] than [like a] barn [manner].
As with flavors above, if we imagine an elliptical manner, we can argue that boardroom and barn are vestigial attributive nouns functioning like adjectives.
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To summarize, the [to be] more NOUN than NOUN pattern is widely used, productive, and accepted in writing, formal and informal. I can understand arguments for adjective (quasi, attributive, or otherwise) interpretations in these patterns, but my sense is that these nouns mostly don’t jump the fence.
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Here are some searches from Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA):
When the results appear, click ALL FORMS (SAMPLE): 500 at the top of the second column to see sample usage. From there, if desired, click a numbered row to see expanded context.
is more _nn1 than _nn1 (simple search—is with singular nouns; you’ll need to disregard false positives headed by the dummy there—such as There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. [—attrib. Frank Zappa])
_vb more _nn1 than _nn1 (all to be inflections with singular nouns; again, disregard dummy theres.)
_nn1 is more _nn1 than _nn1 (singular noun with is and singular nouns)
Grammatically speaking, I would say that the comparison isn't between the two nouns, but the similarity of the subject's mannerism (The German Mr. Hafner's buttoned-up manner) to a boardroom as opposed to a barn.
So it's not so much comparing a boardroom to a barn, but it is like comparing a subject's similarity to one adjective (presumably used to describe their personality or characteristic) to another adjective.
Here the nouns are used as substitutes to adjectives because the nouns are meant to be representative of certain characteristics, so they are used as if they are adjective in a way here.
I would argue that this construction isn't comparing two nouns. I see it as creating an ad hoc path between the named items, where ordinarily, you wouldn't regard them as being connected.
... is more fiction than fact
... is part fiction, part fact
At the vary least, the more X than Y construction creates a need for some sort of middle from which to base the comparison. The second one does not.
This can work just fine within literal, figurative, metaphorical, or any other circumstances because it is a construction. And there really doesn't seem to be any restrictions on the sort of things that can be used as targets as long as the context lets you connect the dots.
We normally don't consider fact and fiction to be on a continuum, but we can force it with this construction -
... an autobiography that is (regarded by scholars as) more fiction than fact.
(I made this one up)
This construction does more than provide a simple apportionment of X and Y. The path connecting the two can be customized by context. We can place waypoints. In the above example, this is left to one's intuition. In a formal context, you would want to make sure there are waypoints on the path that help identify the middle.
The next challenge is to establish evidence-based protocols for goal-directed fluid therapy so that perioperative fluid management can become more science than art.
https://pubs.asahq.org/anesthesiology/article/130/5/677/18876/Perioperative-Fluid-ManagementTurning-Art-to