Hi,
I have read this quote on the internet 'It's better to be unique than the best'. Since I am interested in English grammar, I felt that this line is incorrect. I suppose the line should be 'It's better to be unique than being the best' or 'It's better to be unique to be the best'. Please suggest.
You can break it down this way:
- It's better to be this than that.
- It's better to be unique than the best.
I see nothing wrong with that.
You're right, though, that it looks strange. That's because, unconsciously, we always look for parallel construction. So the presence of a
the in one item and not the other can be slightly jarring:
unique versus
the best.
So if you want an elegant solution, simply remove the
the:
- It's better to be unique than best.
But if you change it to "
It's better to be unique than being the best, " you'll commited a graver crime against parallelism by trying to use
be with
being. That's downright indefensible. And it still doesn't solve the
the problem. It would just muddle the sentence further.
If you're determined, however, to stretch out the sentence, you can still use good parallelism, as suggested in posts above:
- It's better to be unique than to be the best.
- It's better being unique than being the best.
- It's better to be unique than it is to be the best.
And if it makes you happy, you can still throw away that pesky
the.
But no matter how the sentence is phrased, it's a clever paradox: There's something better than best!
