*にくい ➡️ *にくく

[indutny]

Hello!

I’m reading book 2 of 鬼滅の刃, and encountered the following sentence where Tanjiro talks about Demon Slayer uniform:

通気性はいいが濡れにくく燃えにくい

My understanding is that he basically says that the airflow of the uniform is great, but it is also water and fire proof (aka hard to get wet and hard to burn). However, I’m not sure I understand why “濡れにくい” becomes “濡れにくく”. I would have thought that it could be “濡れにくくて” to make it “hard to get wet and X”. Is it some shortened form of “…くて”?

Thanks!

[Delta386]

Yep, it’s just a shortened version of くて to my knowledge. It’s kinda like how some polite forms of verbs can be shortened:

バス停で立ち、バスを待てた。
バス停で立て、バスを待てた。

Although the form you showed is a smoother connection of adjectives. As far as I know, this is both casually and politely acceptable!

[indutny]

Awesome. Thanks a lot!