- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
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SMART TALK
by Dr. Parley Speake
EACH WAS BETTER THAN THE NEXT: Here at the Center for English as a First Language, we've had more and more patients presenting with a fascinating variation of Temporal Retentive Syndrome (TRS). In describing, for instance, a wonderful restaurant, they will say that each course was better than the next. They're exhibiting a disorder related to TRS known as Inadvertent Ranking Reversal Syndrome (IRRS). Obviously, if each item were better than the next, the quality would keep getting worse, not better. Right? Right. Think about it.
When we first encountered IRRS, we thought of it as a variant of Cerebral Constipation but decided that IRRS sufferers didn't exhibit enough symptoms to warrant such a dire diagnosis.
So how can our patients learn to say what they mean? We offer three options: Each was better than the one before, or - simple is better, you know - Each one got better. And simplest, and dropping the redundancy, Each got better.
We do have some difficulty turning on the logic switch in some of our patients, so they remember that Each was better than the next means things got steadily worse, and Each was worse than the next means things got better all the time. They seem to forget what next means.
Meaning the opposite of what one says has precedent in So don't I, meaning So do I. This too, like the title malady, is more prevalent among but not limited to less-educated speakers.