Talk:worser

Surely not. Jooge 20:45, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Crap. Delete. If we are going to have every error produced by the English language, we'd be here forever. --Dmol 20:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

While worser is a very common form in spoken Southern U.S. English, worstest is fairly rare. I believe these two have been discussed here before. —Stephen 21:04, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

For worser, added a quote from Shakespeare. "Every error produced by the English language" indeed. --Ptcamn 21:25, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't worstest be an adjective as well as a noun? (p.s. added worsest as well). SemperBlotto 21:56, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Is it even a noun at all? I would've thought it was just an adjective. --Ptcamn 22:03, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

If the cites are real (probably want some more though) I'd err on te side of keeping them, however, they could be tagged with {{archaic}} or {{rare}} and make a note under ====Usage notes==== to explain they are definitely not standard. This is only a suggestion, but we should keep words if they are useful to know about.--Williamsayers79 08:55, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd have though they were both adjectives, comparative and superlative forms respectively.--Williamsayers79 09:31, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Much like the gerund problem, here superlatives are quite frequently used as nouns with the same meaning. In fact comparatives can also be used the same way, though that's "the rarer" of the two cases. Using any other adjective in this way I would construe as an ellipsis in most cases, but Spanish for instance allows any adjective to be used as a noun. What to do? DAVilla 15:40, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

In Spanish, it's a legacy of Latin. In Latin, any adjective can be used as a noun. The Latin grammarians use "substantive" for this, though English grammarians (and Dutch) use the term "substantive" to refer to any noun -- not just the adjectives functioning as nouns. I've been wrestling with the problem of how to handle this in Latin, particularly since there are additional inflection issues with calling somehting a "noun" in Latin. --EncycloPetey 18:21, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Added a cite for worstest. It seems User:Doremítzwr has tagged these as (nonstandard, redundant); is this sufficient, or do they need rare as well? --Jeffqyzt 19:49, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think they need rare. I'm sure they're common in the dialects that use them. Rare should be for things which do occur, but rarely, in standard English.

I've reverted redundant as POV. Plenty of standard constructions are redundant too. What about lesser? --Ptcamn 04:04, 18 October 2006 (UTC)