Worse and worse

[Ben Zimmer]

On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 10:06 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> On Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 8:11 AM, William Palmer <palmerwil at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Raleigh News & Observer food writer Andrea Weigl, describing her enjoyment
> > of a restaurant's various preparations of beets, summarized by noting that
> > "Each dish was more delicious than the next".
>
> I can't offer a citation, but I've heard this logical reversal ("more X than
> the next" instead of "...the last") more than once.
>
> Dyslogia?

This came up in the comments on a recent Language Log post by Mark
Liberman on logical reversals involving "much less," "let alone," etc.

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2994#comment-111930

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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