Then of course there’s always “each one more _____ than the next,” which is what “each one more _____ than the last” seems to be turning into.
“He saw before him a room full of nubile young men, each one handsomer than the next.”
Which is to say that they get uglier and uglier as they go. Which isn’t really what was intended to be conveyed. At least I hope not.
Kinda like how people always say “I could care less”, which actually implies that they give a slight shit, rather than “I could not care less.”
Accck. I do hate this one … and “handsomer.” Hideous.
I also love the way Beyoncé has now legitimized the mistaken phrase “could care less” with the unwashed masses in her wildly popular Single Ladies. When attempting to gently correct someone and that person says, “well, Beyonce says it that way,” well, I just want to scream. Oh, yes, Beyoncé is so well-known for her command of grammar!
I also hate when I try to use proper accent marks and they do not render correctly! And yes, I see I missed one application of the accent.
Funny. I recently corrected an author regarding this exact phrase. I had occasion to read a pre-publication print of his book and found this phrase in it. I couldn’t let it pass. He took the criticism politely, but I have no idea whether he decided to make the change before the final version of the book went to print.
Still, it doesn’t bother me quite so much as “I could care less.”
Seems to me that this is one just your stupid fault for going through them in a pessimal order 😉
@marc: “handsomer” sounds and looks perfectly fine to me. I see also that the word “handsome” originally meant “easy to manipulate”(!).
A4