Make Your Editor Cry: Each one worse than the next vs. Each one worse than the last
Here’s another idiom that makes no sense if you just stop and think about the meaning of the words. You can’t say something is worse than the next because you don’t know what the next one will be. But you do know what the last thing before it was.
Here’s one example of its incorrect use: “The Tigers have looked quite good at home, but on the road? It’s been one disaster after another, each one worse than the next.”
The correct idiom is “each one worse than the last.”
Examples:
I have to say that the shows in this TV series are getting progressively worse and worse. Each one is worse than the last.
Gregg Bridgeman is the Editor-in-Chief at Olivia Kimbrell Press. He is husband to best-selling Christian author Hallee Bridgeman and parent to three. He continues to proudly serve in the US Armed Forces and has done so in either an active or reserve capacity for more than twenty years as an airborne and air assault qualified paratrooper, earning a Bronze Star for his service. Most importantly, he was ordained in October of 2001 after surrendering his life to Christ decades earlier.