Page 7 | It's "the worsT", not "the worse"

CamillaMcCauley · 18/09/2026 09:35

Dovesono · 18/09/2026 09:28

Exactly. People who are bad at maths can't just pay £10 for something that costs £100, and no-one would be accused of being snobby for pointing it out.

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What a ludicrously unrealistic analogy.

BaileysHotChocolateByThePool · 18/09/2026 09:38

I think I have PTSD from covid and 'aloud'.

We're not aloud to stand close to people
We're not aloud do visit
That's not aloud
People are not aloud

Its ALLOWED ffs!

It still happens now every now and then and give a silent scream.

ObelixtheGaul · 18/09/2026 09:44

The use of the word 'invite' incorrectly has becoming ubiquitous. Invite is a verb. A 'doing' word. It's the word for what you are doing when you ask someone to an event. 'I would like to invite you to my party'.
The potential guest hasn't been given an invite. He or she has been given an invitation. That is the noun.

miffmufferedmoof · 18/09/2026 09:58

I’ve seen ‘inferring’ when they mean ‘implying’ a lot recently. Just plain wrong (and annoying)

thestudio · 18/09/2026 10:00

I saw 'to all intense and purposes' here recently.
I used to like the idea of a 'living language' but now.. sigh.

Beenhereforever1978 · 18/09/2026 10:08

Story instead of storey when referring to building levels. Particularly gruesome when you're looking at houses and the estate agent uses it. I have to restrain myself from emailing.

cucumber4745 · 18/09/2026 10:23

more worse… worsest
bestest
beterer
effected instead of affected
their instead of there
me instead of my
and when should be or
has instead of as

wtf 🤣

I am non-native speaker and these get drilled into your head, so when native speakers mistake them drives me crazy

pointythings · 18/09/2026 10:35

LuckyHazelFox · 17/09/2026 20:52

Worse than that is people not being able to spell lose. It's not loose!

It can be. There's a goose loose in the hoose! But yes, I do wish people would take a bit more time to use the correct word for the context they are operating in.

pointythings · 18/09/2026 10:36

cucumber4745 · 18/09/2026 10:23

more worse… worsest
bestest
beterer
effected instead of affected
their instead of there
me instead of my
and when should be or
has instead of as

wtf 🤣

I am non-native speaker and these get drilled into your head, so when native speakers mistake them drives me crazy

You forgot 'of' instead of 'have'. I am also foreign.

LuckyHazelFox · 18/09/2026 10:40

Who's and whose. The majority of people go to who's as the default spelling.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 18/09/2026 10:47

cucumber4745 · 18/09/2026 10:23

more worse… worsest
bestest
beterer
effected instead of affected
their instead of there
me instead of my
and when should be or
has instead of as

wtf 🤣

I am non-native speaker and these get drilled into your head, so when native speakers mistake them drives me crazy

I used to teach EFL to mostly young males in an Arabic speaking country, it took at the most a couple of hours to teach them the difference between it’s and its, and other all too common errors. One of them wasn’t even literate in his own language.

I dare say part of it is down to kids mucking about in lessons and refusing to pay attention. These things (there/they’re/their, who’s whose, your/you’re) really aren’t difficult, though I know some people choose to believe that they’re too hard for ordinary mortals to understand,

GreyCarpet · 18/09/2026 10:52

My current bugbears (alongside most of these) include use instead of used.

As in, "I use to work there too."

And incorrect use of who, eg as in relation to taking about VAWG, "Protect from who?" It's whom.

Or when people use the same preposition twice in a sentence incorrectly. Eg, "To who(m) does this belong to?'

IStillHearTheWaves · 18/09/2026 10:56

Notsosweetcaroline · 18/09/2026 08:10

It is kind of correct, “winter of discontent” , it comes from Shakespeares Richard 111 and is actually now is the “winter of our discontent”. So I don’t see the issue myself.

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The context is compeltely wrong, though. 'Now is the winter of discontent' means the end of their discontent - they are looking to better times, not worse ones. Journalists always use it, incorrectly, to signal difficult times ahead.

IStillHearTheWaves · 18/09/2026 11:00

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 18/09/2026 10:47

I used to teach EFL to mostly young males in an Arabic speaking country, it took at the most a couple of hours to teach them the difference between it’s and its, and other all too common errors. One of them wasn’t even literate in his own language.

I dare say part of it is down to kids mucking about in lessons and refusing to pay attention. These things (there/they’re/their, who’s whose, your/you’re) really aren’t difficult, though I know some people choose to believe that they’re too hard for ordinary mortals to understand,

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It also suggests a lack of reading. The best way to make the rules of grammar stick, is to read.

LuckyHazelFox · 18/09/2026 11:02

IStillHearTheWaves · 18/09/2026 11:00

It also suggests a lack of reading. The best way to make the rules of grammar stick, is to read.

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Isn't it just.

dustabsorber · 18/09/2026 11:04

I would set a minimum standard say GCSE 4 in English to use the internet

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 18/09/2026 11:06

IStillHearTheWaves · 18/09/2026 11:00

It also suggests a lack of reading. The best way to make the rules of grammar stick, is to read.

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I agree absolutely. Any well written (and I don’t mean ‘literary’) book will do. The trouble is, IMO, a lot of reading for too many is confined to social media dross. SM is all very well, as long as they read something else, too.

croisette · 18/09/2026 11:07

Always makes me think of my A level English: “And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
So long as we can say 'This is the worst.'”
😂

Hotafternoon · 18/09/2026 11:08

sallyrhubarbbb · 17/09/2026 21:36

YES.

also, ‘should of’, ‘could of’, would of’, instead of ‘have’ makes my teeth itch.

My mum used to correct us constantly on this when we were teenagers.

Another favourite of hers was " get off" not get off of".

JaneFoe · 18/09/2026 11:24

Judashascomeintosomemoney · 17/09/2026 23:04

Because it’s a fabric. And a yarn.

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Worsted and bested are synonyms. They both mean to get the better of an opponent. Past tense of their verbs.

Worsted, noun, also is a yarn/fabric derived from Worstead.

JaneFoe · 18/09/2026 11:32

thestudio · 18/09/2026 10:00

I saw 'to all intense and purposes' here recently.
I used to like the idea of a 'living language' but now.. sigh.

Oh I saw a couple of those too, "for all intense and purposes". Thought it was a genuine auto correct typo (missing the t would put the e on the end of intens) until I saw it again.

JaneFoe · 18/09/2026 11:58

pointythings · 18/09/2026 10:35

It can be. There's a goose loose in the hoose! But yes, I do wish people would take a bit more time to use the correct word for the context they are operating in.

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It's a moose no' a goose

"There's a moose loose aboot this hoose"

If they weren't drunk when they wrote that, it was possession. 😂

Millytante · 18/09/2026 12:21

Dovesono · 17/09/2026 20:51

Well not always, but most of the time when people write "worse", they actually mean "worst".

If the worst should happen.
If the worst comes to the worst.
The worst thing I have ever seen.
She is the worst person I know.

As in "bad, worse, worst."
Opposite of "good, better best."

Thank you.

It’s ‘If worse comes to the worst’!

Millytante · 18/09/2026 12:28

CamillaMcCauley · 18/09/2026 07:18

I would be embarrassed to have made this post!

Niggardly is an archaic word and easily open to misinterpretation and confusion, and subsequent upset (rightly or wrongly).

If clarity was the intention, stingy would have been a far better word to use. This is exactly the kind of snobbery I loathe, turning up your nose at people who don’t know a fairly obscure word.

The MP in question sounds desperately out of touch with his audience if he thought that was a good choice of word to use.

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Well, no wonder everything has to aimed at a reading age of about nine now, if straightforward, uncontentious/ inoffensive words must be nixed just in case someone, somewhere might misconstrue them.

thestudio · 18/09/2026 12:33

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 18/09/2026 09:24

Personally I have a real issue with anyone telling children or young people that these things don’t matter any more - only finicking old pedants give a toss.
Many people certainly DO care, and quite apart from anything else, being unable to write clear, largely correct, basic English may well make it harder for them to find jobs.

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And also 'not caring' feels like an expression, and driver, of the current nihilistic political climate, and the concurrent individualist 'my truth' narrative in culture. So I feel much more uptight about things like this, phones with volume up, pyjamas to Tesco etc than I might otherwise do.