- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
Print 
SMART TALK SMART TALK by Dr. Will S. Sert
EACH ONE WAS WORSE THAN THE NEXT: At the Center for English as a First Language, we usually encounter Temporal Disorder in the form of redundancies, such as advance reservations, three AM in the morning, or plan ahead. But occasionally, we have a patient such as the member of a tasting panel, who complained about the samples from amateur cooks, “Each one was worse than the next.”
To which, I replied, “Well, thank goodness.” Her look of confusion told me she was suffering from temporal disorder. This form, however, is a bit more subtle than simple redundancy.
The patient meant, of course, to say, “Each one was worse than the one before,” which would tell the world that the samples kept getting worse. Worse than the next tells us that the next sample is a bit better.
The converse is just as true. “Each was better than the next” says the quality is deteriorating. “Each was better than the one before” says the quality is improving.
Simply changing “next” to “the one after,” which is what “next” means, seems to bring a dawning to many patients. They see immediately how silly it sounds to say “Each one was worse than the one after it.” They would never say that. Never.
v11i7