Chuck,

You’re not splitting hairs. There are two distinct uses for better and best. In the usage grammars generally assume, as in “This is a better essay than it was before,” and “This is the best essay I’ve read on this assignment,” it’s clearly referring to a known essay within a known set. However, there is also a legitimate usage “This is one of the better essays on this topic,” and “This is one of the best essays on this topic,” where the comparison is to an indefinite set. In this case, the former set “one of the better” is smaller and less distinguished than the latter set “one of the best”. It’s a legitimate distinction that writers should be allowed to make. This is not to deny that the distinction can be misused. I’ve noticed that sports announcers rarely, if ever, use “one of the best”, perhaps because of a professional constraint on modesty of expression. Here the culture seems to discourage one of the options.

Herb

From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Chuck Fisher
Sent: Friday, December 15, 2006 9:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: "Best" or "Better"

Question for the group as I'm wading through final essays. I want to (very) occasionally tell a student, "This is one of the better essays I've read in this batch"; however, the rule says with more than two items, use the superlative "best." But I don't want to say, "It's one of the best essays I've read." It seems to me a matter of qualitative degree, not an issue of adhering to a quantitative convention. To say "best" would connote high writing skill, and although that may be the case, it may also mean that in a batch of otherwise mediocre essays, a particular one is better than most--but not sterling (or "best")--that is the implication I intend when using "better" instead of "best." Am I splitting hairs?

Chuck Fisher
Professor, English
Aims Community College
5401 West 20th St.
Greeley, CO 80634
970-339-6520
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