[need help]"worse and worse" --> correct or not?

[Pacman]

just now when talking with 1 of my friends I used the phrase "worse and worse". She corrected me it should be "from bad to worse" and dont say "getting worse and worse". After searching on Google I found many context that ppl use both of the phrase, so I'm wondering if any1 can help me to judge which 1 is right or wrong... because ppl are using it doesnt mean that it's right also...

*** any mod pls move this post to ask a teacher box... Ty and sorry for being a newbie...

[Hayseed]

Hi Pacman,

I don`t know if "worse and worse" is technically correct in English or not, but native speakers (like me) use it often. I`d use it as you see fit, it`ll make you sound more "natural" when speaking English, imo.

[Tdol]

It's perfectly correct- we often use a pair of comparatives to show a process in this way. Also, it might not have been bad at the start, which your friend's suggestion implies, so use it freely.

[Cynde]

I agree 'going from bad to worse ' has a slightly different meaning. We say getting better and better (and not 'going from good to better') So, why not worse and worse?

[jonops]

Hello - I'm a newbie here, but an oldie in age - and so have been around a bit. I grew up in the North Midlands of uk - now teach Eglish in Estonia. Al my life I have used the phrase 'worse and worse' - but, when I lived in Yorkshire, we said 'eh lad, tha gets worser and worser' ....So, I'll let the 'masters of literature' have a word here............

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON. Letter: TO CHARLES BAXTER
[CHALET AM STEIN], DAVOS, DECEMBER 5, 1881.

MY DEAR CHARLES, — We have been in miserable case here; my wife worse and worse; and now sent away with Lloyd for sick nurse, I not being allowed to go down. I do not know what is to become of us; and you may imagine how rotten I have been feeling, and feel now, alone with my weasel–dog and my German maid, on the top of a hill here, heavy mist and thin snow all about me, and the devil to pay in general. I don’t care so much for solitude as I used to; results, I suppose, of marriage.
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Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre

"If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way; they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should - so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.”
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The Devoted Friend - Oscar Wilde

"But the storm grew worse and worse, and the rain fell in torrents, and little Hans could not see where he was going, or keep up with the horse.”

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Shakespeare - The Taming of the Shrew, Act V, Scene II

BIONDELLO She says you have some goodly jest in hand:
She will not come: she bids you come to her.
PETRUCHIO Worse and worse; she will not come! O vile,
Intolerable, not to be endured!
Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress;
Say, I command her to come to me.


Macbeth - Act 3, Scene 4

LADY MACBETH I pray you, speak not; he grows worse and worse;
Question enrages him. At once, good night:
Stand not upon the order of your going,
But go at once.
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However !!!!!!

Snarleyyow - Captain Marryat - (Chapter 12)

“Dat is better and better—I mean to say, worser and worser,” replied the corporal.
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Jacob Faithful - Captain Marryat - ( Chapter 23 )

Well, I dreamed of your mother all that night, and the next day went to see her, and felt worser and worser each time, and she snubbed Jones, and at last told him to go about his business.



So..... for better or for worse ?

or - till death do us part !


jonops

[Cynde]

Such excellent research! Good work!