ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONFUSING WORDS SERIES #4: WORSE VS. WORST
Worst case scenario or Worse case scenario? Let’s find out the answer at the end of this post.
Homophones are words that sound alike when spoken but have different meanings and spellings. So far you have already seen examples of homophones from this series. We will tackle another set of of these kinds.
DISCLAIMER: I am not an English Native Speaker nor an expert in English language. What I write here are all from experience and research. If you feel I am out of line or say the wrong things, please alert me in the comments. To this effect, I am not immuned to these confusing words myself and this series is as much as an education for me as to those who read these blog posts.
PHOTO SOURCE: LINKEDIN
Worse Vs. Worst
These two words are, in fact, adjectives in their comparative and superlative forms. Comparative adjectives are used to compare two objects they modify. Superlatives are adjectives are used to compare an object to three or more objects.
Worse means “of lower quality or standard.” As a comparative adjective, it is often used with the word “than” when comparing two objects.
Example #1: A Plagiarist is worse than a thief.
Example #2: My other blog post is worse than this one.
However, you may use “worse” to compare more than two objects as long as the other is a “group” object.
Example: This blog post is worse than the other three posts I made yesterday.
The “other three posts” is a group of three other posts and is considered as one object.
Worst means “of lowest quality or lowest standard.” As a superlative adjective, it is often used with the word “the” when comparing with three or more objects.
Example #1: Plagiarism is the worst of all crimes against intellectual property.
Example #2: This is the worst blog post I've ever written since I started with Steemit.
So, which one is correct? “Worst case scenario” or “Worse case scenario”?
As an idiom reference, the first is the correct one which refers to the “extreme” situation. This simply refers to the ultimate scenario where the worst of the worst happens.