Worst
Are the following sentences proper and correct?
“The weather is getting worst.” “The ten best clients and the ten worst clients.”
My wife insists that it should be worse and not worst.
Thanks.
Search
Categories
Recently Discussed
- your call will be answered in the order it was received
May 24, 2013, 9:03am - Canadian pronunciation of “out and about”
May 24, 2013, 8:48am - Word in question: Conversate
May 24, 2013, 8:25am - Colon and semicolon in a single sentence
May 24, 2013, 8:09am - He was sat
May 24, 2013, 7:43am - Had he breakfast this morning?
May 23, 2013, 3:34pm - subconscious vs unconscious
May 22, 2013, 10:08pm - Plural of name ending in Y
May 22, 2013, 8:00am - Try and
May 22, 2013, 6:46am - Idea Vs. Ideal
May 19, 2013, 5:32am
©2001-2013 CYCLE Interactive, LLC. All Rights Reserved. • About • Contact • RSS Posts • RSS Comments
bunny (unregistered)
March 10, 2009, 9:25am
Is this sentence correct? "it will just make the situation alot worst"
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse
blaine243
November 5, 2006, 4:02pm
I have a question. Now if I were to refer to an evil world leader, more specifically the most evil, would I say the 'best' evil leader or would it be the 'worst' evil leader?
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse
speedwell2
February 28, 2005, 8:25am
It may help to experimentally substitute "better" and "best" into the sentence to see which makes more sense. If "better" sounds better, then you would use "worse;" if "best" sounds like the right fit, then use "worst."
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse
speedwell2
February 28, 2005, 8:00am
Yes, the second "sentence" may be a fragment, but that isn't what Ted really wanted to know.
Ted, "worst" is the opposite of "best," so despite the fragmentary nature of your second example, the usage of "worst" is correct. They are both superlatives (think about other similar words that end in -est, such as "prettiest" and "highest").
But when describing something that has gotten more undesirable in some way, the correct word is "worse."
Examples:
"My son used to just steal beer from the refrigerator, but now he has become hooked on drugs. I have had the worst time dealing with him. He has gone from bad to worse."
"My boss insults customers, golfs on work time, and lies on his expense account. But worst of all, he cooks the books. I have never had a worse boss."
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse
Persephone Imytholin (unregistered)
February 27, 2005, 3:49am
It's still a sentence fragment. Fragments are correct in many, many cases, but a fragment isn't technically a sentence.
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse
slemmet (unregistered)
February 26, 2005, 11:44pm
How can you say the second sentence isn't correct?
- Who are coming to the meeting?
- The ten best clients and the ten worst clients.
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse
Persephone Imytholin (unregistered)
February 26, 2005, 11:20pm
Weather gets the comparitive degree - "The weather is getting worse". 'Worst' is appropriate if you say, frex, "The weather is at its worst".
The second sentence isn't correct. It's a sentence fragment, and screams for a verb to help it along. The use of 'worst' is correct - "Our ten best and ten worst clients came by the office today". To use 'worse', then it'd need to be a slightly more awkward sentence like "Ten of our better and ten of our worse clients paid their accounts last week".
0 vote Vote! • URL to this comment • Report Abuse